I was trying to figure out, and I am sure many will have opinions to help me. But, I was trying to figure out why for open source software, these two would following the similar pricing as the commercial. Not sure (for an open source) why it matters how many cores or servers I have -
Proxmox wants per core. WHY?
For XCP-NG, they want per host WHY?
I can understand XOA appliance they develop this like a commercial application.
When i started to compare what I was paying for VMWare Standard, i was shocked to see that these two were basically the same pricing.
Then I was like for an open-source platform, why are they charging me PER CORE and PER HOST? Why does that really matter.
I just feel that this really gets you back at a COMMERCIAL level application. (yes you are not paying for the virtual software, but what you pay for support, you really are.
Proxmox - 6 hosts (2 sockets each) = $7000 - $13000 per year
XCP-NG - 6 hosts (business level support) $6000 - $11,000 per year.
I understand if you say, well, it goes to support them. I understand, but this really puts me at the price I was paying for a commercial license (VMware) with the Standard bundles. Not sure I understand why open source is similar in cost to commercial software. and why they choose to following these pricing schemes?
Any one have any feedback on this?
This is what paid last year for VMWare - this is why I am concerned and asking.
The short answer is just because the code is open and free does not change the cost to develop it.
The reason open source is better is because you don’t HAVE to pay them to use the product, in most cases you pay to get support for the product. This changes the dynamic and means they have tor provide high quality support of you won’t give them money.
Funding any software projects that have a higher level of complexity that requires lots of full time high level developer is very tricky. Open source projects are competing for the same high level teams as their closed source counterparts that are very well funded.
You can now pay the very expensive cost of VMware licensing or you can pay what you paid originally with a competitive product.
Thank you Maximus - was not the point of the question.
I would have thought a straight support cost for support
My question was why did they go the route of charging support per SOCKET or PER VM. Why not just a fixed support cost. Why follow the commercial model.
Thank you Tom,
I understand and am not berating the need to support these ventures. But it just seemed odd to me that they chose to following commercial style pricing that VMWare did before.
My question, was more, why did they price support based on a the # of sockets or hosts, but not just a support cost… based on time or annual support agreement.
This makes it feel too commercial and would it allow them to do subscription and follow how commercial companies do. Like you company does, you charge and HOURLY rate, or you have an agreement for x$ per month for things…
That was just more of a question I had.
If I were in their shoes I’d have them pay per host. Think about it like this. If you were the support guy and some noob decided to do something to all the host (I know this is outlandish). Then support would need to fix the entire infrastructure. Which would cost many hours if they had more than 3 hosts (talking about xcpng). Now they could have a support model where they would bill you per hour until the issue was fixed. Also, do you know how many support tickets come in all the time? They need a constant revenue stream and the unpredictability of hours worked on each client, to me, doesn’t sound like a good business model. Money upfront is always better IMO. Also I know how most businesses are with money. If an issue occurs and you need to tell management that you need support and you tell them the hourly cost. They will most likely decline and try to make the employed sysadmins figure it out.
We charge hourly when people buy consulting time but for our managed services support we charge per device as that scales with the businesses we support and their needs.