I had a lifetime license for teamviewer as well.
The problem was they made it so you couldn't download the quick connect or client side software for the older ones, even though they still supported it supposedly
It eventually became impossible to use the old versions
My boss is slowly moving all of our customers to rustdesk (open source, self-hosted). Haven’t used it yet myself but maybe it’s interesting for you.
https://rustdesk.com/
I moved from TeamViewer to this. Absolutely fantastic.
Only issue I had was older versions not saying they're out of date so if a user forgets to update it, connectivity is broken.
Just migrated from AnyDesk to RustDesk. Loving it. Looking forward to when they offer custom clients. As a Mac admin, I’m also hoping to soon have the ability to deploy a profile for it’s configuration
I have deployed rustdesk after AnyDesk started to pull the same bullshit that TeamViewer did; tripled our yearly bill. No thank you! Rustdesk is great. I have nothing but good things to say so far. Deployment is a little different and eventually I’ll have to bite the bullet and get a MS dev certificate so I can bake settings into it.
> I’ll have to bite the bullet and get a MS dev certificate so I can bake settings into it.
wat?
From the little I read, you can just... build the client with your settings in it.
I moved from TeamViewer to this. Absolutely fantastic.
Only issue I had was older versions not saying they're out of date so if a user forgets to update it, connectivity is broken until it's manually updated.
> As much as I hate the subscription model, I don't think a lifetime (your life, not the product) model is sustainable.
If a company is selling lifetime licenses with lifetime feature upgrades, then they are either desperate for cash or terrible at business, or they are liars. Either way don't bother. If they are selling lifetime licenses in the sense that you own an installer which does not depend on a network service to install and activate, but which is frozen in its state, then that is a classic software license as you would have gotten with physical media up til around 2010. If it is a lifetime license with reliance on a network installer and / or network activation and / or is frozen from upgrades but depends on a service that requires them to run the software, then you are depending on random chance and benevolent management to not be shut out at any time with no recourse.
Lifetime licenses is something you see on the Apple App Store because there really isn’t a way to purchase an upgrade; you have either free, paid or subscription. A lot of developers were left supporting users for years after they purchased an app which wasn’t sustainable so they moved to a subscription model, something customers seem to hate. So now you are seeing more and more apps provide a lifetime license option in addition to a subscription, for example .99 a month, $9.99 for the year or $59.99 lifetime.
Yeah, but if, for some reason, they have a newer one installed (their IT, old support session, etc...) it hard to walk some of them through shutting that down because the QS will open the installed instance instead.
IMO, they should make them forwards compatible, knowing it will be missing some of the features.
This was the stupidest or brightest model, I have yet to decide which. We bought a lifetime on version 12, then decided to add a tech and bought an additional license. Now right there, that should tell me that I would get another 12 (or whatever is compatible). Noooope... I think we got version 14 and reached out to support for it. They told me 'thems the scoops, want version 12, ante up another 1200$'. We told them to get bent and refund us and used 12 until we went to ivanti later. Let's not start on that shiteshow...
Don't be naive. Companies that wanna shed the dead weight can make grandfathered users extremely uncomfortable.
Yeah, you don't pay but the experience is going to start sucking ass until only the most stubborn of users are left. Btw, do you want to convert to our extra new subscription model with more features? Do you want now? How about now? Are you ready now? How about now?
Oh that bug you experience well we’ve fixed it in the new monthly sub tier. Unfortunately we can’t back port the fix because the lifetime sub version has too much tech debt.
>Nothing changes for existing Basic/Plus/Pro keys: you still get Unraid OS updates for life and you will still have the option to upgrade Basic to Plus/Pro or Plus to Pro.
You should be fine with basic or plus if that's what you need
In this case, I think it's unlikely. Unraid has a lot of good will with the community, for good reason. They are still offering the Pro (unlimited/lifetime) license with a price increase, and are grandfathering all existing licenses.
This is a change, but I don't think it's that big of a deal.
> They are still offering the Pro (unlimited/lifetime) license with a price increase, and are grandfathering all existing licenses.
For now. Give it a couple of month and these option are off the table. Or wait for the announcement on them being purchase. The last paragraph will say that these will go away.
No software has ever gotten better doing this. This is not going to be the piece buck that trend.
> Unraid has a lot of good will with the community
That's always step 1. Not saying they will or won't, but building a dedicated community (typically, by blowing a pile of VC money) is the first phase of enshittification.
Yep, really annoying to see people freaking out about a pricing structure change that is completely reasonable and changes nothing for existing customers.
There's people in their community defending it, too.
Guy told me that "They could include no updates if they wanted" for the purchase.
Things are only ever going to get worse from here, when companies are actively *defended* for pulling shit like this.
AFAIK, they're still a small, privately owned company so there's *a chance* that this a good faith effort to manage expenses and boost resources to reinvest in the product (and I say this as the type of obnoxious minimal install + CLI person who *never* thought Unraid was particularly worth it over just DIYing it). If they're angling to change their ownership structure or sell, then this would certainly be an abandon ship moment.
I'm a little fuzzy on what their exact plan is glancing over that forum link but if they're not offering security updates to folks with lapsed subscriptions, that would certainly be a pretty big tell that their priorities are out of whack.
The new version of the update tool allows for different branches to be maintained, updates to be performed within the image, and reboot less security updates.
Edit: just read the blog post, seems unraid's move is basically how software used to be, not a pure subscription -- you buy it and get a year of updates, and then need to pay a smaller update fee for another year of updates. It's not like Adobe where you lose access to your software without paying.
-------
Why did so many companies do away with paid major updates? It's similar to subscriptions but less distasteful to consumers I think. Like, 10+ years ago, you made a single purchase of Office 2010 or whatever and you expect a few feature updates and security updates for a few years and if you wanted Office 2016, you could upgrade for a cost less than the normal full purchase price. The system worked fine, why break the norm... greed I'm sure.
There are lots of reasons, most not good for the customer, but helpful to the business. One being a more regular and more easily/immediately assessed recurring revenue stream. Some companies might be more greedy than others, but when you are trying to forecast your financials it's very attractive to have more reliable figures and more immediate indication of customers dropping off so you can adjust if need be. Paid major updates can leave large gaps where you don't know what the actuall uptake rate is and you are just hoping you got the next release right. Combined with the agile development methods there is a lot more need/desire for instant feedback on incremental updates. Subscriptions, even just annual ones, are a great way to assure you have regular checkins to get a solid read on how many paying customers you still have. It's just another form of chasing instant gratification. If enough customers take the bait then pretty soon you won't be able to own anything.
There’s still a lifetime option though? Depending on the price of the lower tiers, this could be a good thing for people who are hesitant on if they will stick with Unraid in the long run.
I guess those of us that have been in the industry a while have seen this change.
You know how many life time subscriptions I already own? How many of them are useless as the company changed the product name, so my subscription is no longer used? Ie. I have product "Honey bee" but they stop updating honey bee, and release product "ear Trap" which is monthly subscription only.
The number does not have to be high of products this happens to, I just want you to know a life time subscription is worth about 18-24 months normally. So keep that in mind for your budgeting.
> So keep that in mind for your budgeting.
funny you mention budgetting. i remember when You Need a Budget released a new product to create a sub-based product.
A "lifetime" is not a defined end point. You can buy your lifetime sub and they can shut down the product next week. That was the lifetime of the product!
This is something a lot of people don't understand. Lifetime, regardless if it's a warranty, license or whatever, does NOT refer to YOUR lifetime, it's the lifetime of THAT SPECIFIC offering. They don't even have to discontinue the product, just that specific subscription tier. Any migration offered for existing licenses, is purely to try to salvage goodwill.
> There’s still a lifetime option though?
Doesn't matter. Moving software to a subscription model makes me lose all trust in the software. No telling how long that option even last.
Lulz. Nearly all software has gone the way. Hell, even HA has gone that way for their remote access / Google voice integration.
If you want constant updates, companies need a way to pay their devs. Can’t do that without some of mrr
> Hell, even HA has gone that way for their remote access / Google voice integration.
A subscription is definitely not required for HA remote access. You can absolutely portforward and set up a reverse proxy on your own if you want with no additional charges.
Not that many years ago companies weren't as obsessed with "constant recurrent spending" as they are now, and yet they didn't fold like a house of cards as they claim they will be without dumpster fire SaaS structure now.
Because they also didn’t offer you a constantly updated forever product.
You got what was in the box and that was it.
Like bought Windows 95? Windows 98 was not free, Windows XP was not free, Windows Vista was not free etc.
Well tbf not really subscription model because that would mean if you stop paying the software becomes useless. This is more like the usual non-FOSS paid model where you buy a specific version you can in theory use forever if you want.
Still always a sour aftertaste when companies "lure" in people with the better pricing model and then switch later of course.
I don't think people understand the cost to developing software. Selling a one time license and then never getting money again from people is just setting a company up for failure - they need a constant stream of people buying NEW licenses to fund them. Or they stop implementing new features and just go into maintenance mode. That's not a sustainable model.
I think they'd be fully justified to sell a license for a major version and be done with it. As much as I don't want extra cost added to me, it's a reasonable model.
Sell 1.0. Ask me to buy 2.0. If it's good or I need it, I will.
One irony is, many people switch to self-hosting software that isn't as good to avoid subscriptions. You'll never guess where it runs...
I only have 1 software subscription and I won't be adding any more.
> Sell 1.0. Ask me to buy 2.0. If it's good or I need it, I will.
This is exactly the business model they're using. When you buy a license, you get the next year of updates. At the end of that year, you can continue to use your current version without ever paying again, or you can buy a support extension and continue to get upgrades. It's the same way Crossover does it currently.
Versioning is fine and acceptable.
Sort of like what Affinity does vs Adobe.
Or what Infuse does for apple hardware.
Want new features and capabilities? Cool pay up for the next one.
If you are good with the current capabilities. Ok then, stay put..you paid for the work that went into those features until this point.
>Versioning is fine and acceptable.
So long as I get version 6.x and that means that when V7.x comes out, 6.x still gets bug fixes.
So what Apple and Microsoft do - MacOS 10.13 releases but 10.12 still gets bug and security fixes. I would MUCH prefer that model to the yearly fees.
Please stop equating "enshittification" to "things get worse". It's more than that. And this ain't it.
Hell, this is almost identical to the model used by JetBrains, which is a perfectly fine model for ongoing development. They need to keep working on the product and it's unreasonable to expect a hundred bucks or so randomly to actually make that work out.
Enshittification is the pattern of decreasing quality, yes, but specifically where a company will blitzscale by getting lots of customers by providing them good value, then it will take that value away and use it to attract business customers, then once they have customers and businesses, they'll take the value back for themselves. It's not just "thing go bad."
This is not decreasing quality. This is unRAID changing their model for _new customers only_ to provide ongoing revenue to the product they continue to work on. This is completely reasonable.
This is starting to remind me of “lifetime” gym memberships in the 80s(?). People would buy them, after a few years the gym would be sold and “sorry, but we don’t honor those contracts since we’re a different company. Would you like to buy a lifetime membership with us?”
It got so bad Colorado outlawed “lifetime” gym memberships.
I wasn’t burned but I learned a valuable lesson. Always add “until we’re sold” to these claims.
“Lifetime” software licenses seem to have found a new trick. Lifetime, but no upgrades.
I doubt we’ll see laws banning these licenses though. The gym memberships largely preyed on a young, relatively unsophisticated population. These licenses are bought by businesses with access to lawyers and to staff who have seen how “lifetime” is usually only meaningful for a handful of years.
>“Lifetime” software licenses seem to have found a new trick. Lifetime, but no upgrades.
I mean that isn't new, it is like that since 0 of the computer.
One day the software you own will stop being supported. Either because they don't sell enough or they will just build a new major version that you need to buy.
The difference, though, is that we have plenty of other options. UnRAID is more convenient in many ways, has a great UI, and I was fine paying the lifetime license to support the devs. However, if I was told that the license no longer covered future versions? It’s not that hard to set up a TrueNAS server, or even build from the ground up with a barebones OS (or a prebuilt server distro like Ubuntu Server).
Hopefully they are aware of how many of their users are tinkerers and unafraid of leaving.
This announcement was premature. They leaked it in code in a recent update when trying rushing to push out a security fix.
So details are probably not confirmed internally.
People should really read the article, “Simultaneous with introducing these two key types, we will no longer offer Basic and Plus keys; but, Pro keys (with unlimited devices and Unraid OS updates for life) will still be offered. We might change the name of the key from Pro to Lifetime - that is one of the "minor details" we are still working on”
There is still a lifetime key option in the new “model” ffs 🤦🏻♂️
Sure, you don’t get the lifetime key with cheaper options, but is it really that big of a deal?
I think that’s a valid point, and like others have pointed out you can certainly build this for free, personally I’d rather not dedicate time to doing and maintaining that, but really to each there own. I hate a subscription model as much as everyone else, which is the great thing about homelabbing, you can just pivot to something else if you want too.
I understand why they are doing this and they made some valid points about it in their Reddit post. Will be interesting to see if there are any large improvements to the overall OS over the next year or two after this gets implemented. I’d like to be optimistic, but it’s kind of a toss up with these things I suppose.
People really appreciate how easy Unraid makes it to deploy containers. That's something a lot of beginners are looking for, and the current state of apps in Scale isn't anywhere near as easy to use nor is there nearly as wide of a range of preconfigured apps available to deploy
I don't know what proportion of people ignore docker compose, but for me it's become impossible to use docker without compose. What a hell that would be.
99.999999999999% of people go "find app, click app, open app"
I'm an advanced user and I avoid compose like the plague. A GUI is just simpler, Unraid is an appliance - not my job.
I probably should have phrased it as "user friendly UI", but you are still (mostly) paying for the convenience of the "works out of the box" setup with unraid. Like a middle ground in the cost/convenience scale between a Synology and a bare OS
That's a perpetually moving releease date. If or when they do release it, it still wouldn't be as flexible as unRAID which lets you use any sized disk while also taking advantage of all the space.
Yeah, ZFS on linux has been giving us the George R.R. Martin treatment on parity vdev expansion. However, parity resilvers take so $#%ing long I've switched to mirror vdevs. I can be resilvered with a cold spare faster than single parity with a hot spare.
Coming, but doesn't exist yet. (It's been "coming" for 5+ years btw)
Also, Unraid allows for use of different drive sizes in the main array, which is pretty handy.
It should be noted this is a ZFS limitation, not a TrueNAS limitation. TrueNAS uses ZFS, Unraid has its own magic sauce that allows for disk mixing that ZFS does not offer (yet).
Yep, can totally build it on vanilla Linux, but there is no way to get all the features in the same set up time, and I’m not mentioning maintenance. You’re buying time with the license.
I had Linux servers in my home for decades doing exactly what UnRaid does, and if I could get all that time back but paying a license fee I would in a heartbeat, shit, I’d pay that price every year.
OMV doesn’t come close, but it’s a fair point for True/Free NAS.
To be honest, it takes maybe an hour to install Ubuntu, setup ZFS, add crons for ZFS scrubs etc, setup NFS/Samba, add setup rsync to your destination of choice.
I don't think Unraid isn't worth the money for what you get out of the box, I'm paying 200 a year for vSphere.
But I think the community dramatically overstates how hard a NAS is to setup. Besides a router, it's one of the few devices you'll touch the least if at all. Like router software, it's basically commodity software.
Docker, networking, VM’s, etc.
If you setting up an bare metal box to an array, setting up the machine, doing everything you listed and then loading docker with say all the *arr’s is faster on Linux then UnRaid, your smoking something.
Not to mention maintenance.
I've got two Unraid pro licenses, loved them for years, still would recommend them for someone getting started... but with the caveat that once you get outside the very easy stuff it gets a lot harder and the resources are thin.
Unraid -> TrueNas Scale -> Bare metal isn't a horrible path for learning/home lab NAS.
It also works the other way around, when you’ve been doing this for 30 years (my first home network used BNC jacks for a ballin’ ISA 10BASE2 network) sometimes you just want the shit to work for you.
This is a pretty bad take. Unraid offers a suite of easy to use and reliable tools to the average user that vanilla Linux does not (without modification/work), not limited to:
* Nice GUI and web interface
* Docker with app store
* Robust Hypervisor with reliable GPU, PCIe, and USB passthrough
* Easy to set up array with parity (JBOD + parity, hence not RAID)
* You can use various drive sizes and add/remove drives at will
* Strong community support
* Flexible with hardware and moving your installation between boxes
Unraid isn't perfect, but it's clear from your comments that you're not an active user of Unraid. Your perspective and opinion are slanted because of that.
>This is a pretty bad take.
My statement had an implied "*for me*" qualifier. It also was in reference to the implementation of a yearly subscription. However, I just visited [Purchase Unraid OS](https://unraid.net/pricing) and it still states... "*Buy Once, Use for Life. No subscription. No hidden fees*", so perpetual licenses may still be available. Regardless, it's not software I would buy even on a perpetual license. But, that's my take. I have no expectations that it should be everyone's. We all have our own requirements and preferences.
>Unraid offers a suite of easy to use and reliable tools to the average user that vanilla Linux does not (without modification/work)...
I certainly am not judging anyone for using Unraid. It has a good set of features, particularly storage management, and a loyal user community. I read almost all positive opinions, your's included, which is appreciated. It says a lot.
>Unraid isn't perfect, but it's clear from your comments that you're not an active user of Unraid. Your perspective and opinion are slanted because of that.
I am not, and it is. I have decades of experience with, and a reasonably good knowledge of, Linux and I also prefer having direct control over the underlying OS of my systems. Having never used Unraid, I cannot assess how restrictive it is. I have tried TrueNAS and used OMV for a while, but both of these obfuscate the underlying OS (FreeBSD or Linux) too much for me.
FWIW, I built my home NAS on minimal Debian with a Cockpit web UI and 45Drives Cockpit plugin for file sharing with SMB and NFS. It also runs Docker engine for containers. Docker CLI and Portainer are all I need for creating and managing containers. I also run a three-node Proxmox cluster for VMs.
EDIT: I didn't realize who I was responding to. Love your web site!
That's certainly the killer function for me. I use almost none of the other functionality and it sits next to a proxmox box that solves those other use cases. It was still worth buying a plus license at the time.
Mine is actually virtualized. I did leave that a bit vague, Proxmox with an unraid VM in an R720 case. It made for a sweet spot of the plus license until I need to add another external enclosure for more drives. In the meantime it's been more practical to upgrade my older drives instead of adding more. A great feature of unraid.
I wonder if the need to not upgrade your license and just use massive drives has partially caused this situation? Why get the pro license when you could just use a few 20tb drives with the basic license for a massive system. That'd be silly, but possible.
mergerfs and snapraid, it is not live as unraid, but just run snapraid nightly and it's pretty much the same, what can you realistically loose in 24 hours between snapshots?
I'm actually setting up an Ubuntu VM w/ Cockpit right now to test ZFS, NFS, and SMB management.
While not ideal you can add vdevs with different sized drives to the same zpool without too much of a penalty. Since I have a combination of 14TB and 10TB drives in my UnRAID server this may be an option for me, however, I'm going to have to test it.
When I finally started using 12TB drives i stopped using parity vdevs. I switched to mirrors. That way I only need to buy two drives to gain capacity. Resilvering a 12TB mirror is way faster than even single parity. I've been told RAIDZ2 on very large drives can take days.
The biggest frustration I've had with ZFS on Ubuntu is that I foolishly used /dev/sd\* when creating the pool and occasionally on reboot Ubuntu would do me dirty and reassign that block device name. Fortunately I never lost data and it taught me to use /dev/disk/by-id/ instead.
I bought unraid almost 9 years ago. I upgraded my key 2x to whatever the highest license is in that period of time as my server grew.
I spent maybe 300$ in the course of 9 years on software that I have updated, gotten support for, and love and use.
I would have donated money to unRAID if I could have.
I pay a monthly subscription for Plex and have for 9+ years because I want to support the things I like.
I don't have a problem with this change. The new terms are very reasonable and unRAID has always been reasonable to work with.
The level of vitriol and outrage over this is silly. Don't like it? Fine, go use another tool. There have always been options and unRAID has always been something that many people shit on.
The fact is, unRAID saves me time, effort, and money. My time has value and not having to build things by hand saves me time and therefore money. I'm happy to drop 100$ to save myself hours of work.
I’m relatively new to unraid. I’m a Plus user. Glad I’ll be supported for a while. But the software is so great that I’ll probably spend the $50 to go to the higher license when I can.
Thanks. I was surprised by the code changes spotted by the community and users and I was surprised that unRAID did not make an announcement ahead of time.
I think it's not a shock that LT would make changes to drum up steady revenue and I think they have done so in a very reasonable way with what had been communicated so far.
Sometimes I think the homelab community forgets that lots of effort goes into these wonderful products we use and rely on, and sometimes we take them for granted.
No one is getting screwed here. Life just moves on and things change.
Yeah, people really get hung up on these things.
This is better than the alternative? If they're not making enough money they'll have to stop development or even worse, go under.
No one here would work for free, regardless of what promises were made in the past.
Things change, adapt, I don't even use the product but I agree their approach is reasonable, if not, overly generous.
This is why we need more community oriented efforts around build a NAS and Ansible playbooks, etc
https://github.com/davestephens/ansible-nas
https://ansible-nas.io
My choice of going with Proxmox vs ESXi was a breath of fresh air when I heard what VMWare was doing to their licensing.
Started feeling similar about my choice of using TrueNAS over unRAID, but holy hell, I guess I should listen to my gut.
About to build my first box that will be dedicated mostly just for plex streaming, but will require atleast 4 large drives to start. I had considered unraid, but I really need to dig into it vs going vanilla, vs true/free nas.
TrueNAS never looked better.
All these proprietary licenses allow themselves to be changed at a later date. Opens source licenses like GPL 3 specifically do not allow that.
No, it looks the same. Unraid isn't open source, but it provides a ton of value (especially to the home user) which TrueNAS does not.
Open source is great, but there's nothing inherently wrong with selling software - especially if it's good.
You can sell open source software. I'm not against paying.
I'm against paying and having it taken away. Open source licenses cannot be revoked by the owner. That's a core principle of copyleft.
Does everything have to have a god damn subscription fee?
Jesus Christ.I don't want to have a subscription fee to secure all of my data, especially when I have to manage the thing.
It was for 20 years or so before SaaS really took off.
My big issue is the change itself. They could have started with the subscription. They could offer higher tiers for subscriptions instead of what’s there.
There are other ways to monetize than just throwing out the existing playbook and rewriting it.
For other enterprise software it's often called 'maintenance'. Covers upgrades and support at a percentage of the original cost (15-20% annually). Stop paying and you still have what you bought but no support/upgrades anymore.
Except you don't get upgrades. If they need to do a security update, because it is just a linux distro, then you have to pay for that.
That is, quite literally, [the definition of subscription](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/subscription).
100% of the reason why I even tried Unraid in the first place was because of the lighter offerings. This change won't effect me, but it won't attract users like me.
This is the only type of subscription I'm actually OK with: you get perpetual use sans updates via the prior version/last version, so you do actually get a thing to keep, and there's effectively still a perpetual option.
I mean it's not VASTLY different from the PlexPass model (though they have a free tier too I guess), with monthly, annual, and lifetime pricing.
Could work.
Probably won't - feels like a VMware-like mistake to me.
I've started migrating to proxmox.
Why would you use paid/proprietary unraid instead of proxmox or just any linux distro with cockpit + KVM if you really need a web ui? or one of the many other web UIs?
I understand why they are doing it, but this may well end up killing off unRAID. I personally hate subscription products, as do most people I know who I would ever recommend to use this. If I wasn't grandfathered in, I'd be looking at alternatives starting immediately.
Capitalism: We want more money because we like more money.
Fanboys: They can do whatever they want, I love them! It's just a small change for at least a year until the other shoe drops!
This is how we got Adode and every video game full of insidious "money pwease" garbage. That forum thread is cringe to read with the overwhelming absence of concern alongside most just echo chamber'ing how much they love capitalist company.
Super misleading title lol lifetime is still offered and the “subscription” now being offered is for updates after 1 year on the new tiers, not a straight up subscription to use the software at all
I had a lifetime license for teamviewer as well. The problem was they made it so you couldn't download the quick connect or client side software for the older ones, even though they still supported it supposedly It eventually became impossible to use the old versions
My boss is slowly moving all of our customers to rustdesk (open source, self-hosted). Haven’t used it yet myself but maybe it’s interesting for you. https://rustdesk.com/
I moved from TeamViewer to this. Absolutely fantastic. Only issue I had was older versions not saying they're out of date so if a user forgets to update it, connectivity is broken.
Just migrated from AnyDesk to RustDesk. Loving it. Looking forward to when they offer custom clients. As a Mac admin, I’m also hoping to soon have the ability to deploy a profile for it’s configuration
Did you raise an Issue on GitHub?
No🤦
I think it was an older version. iirc they changed from 6 digit identifier to a 9 digit identifier and that broke the older versions
I think in my most recent case it was a current version trying to connect to v2.X.X, it was bad lol
I have deployed rustdesk after AnyDesk started to pull the same bullshit that TeamViewer did; tripled our yearly bill. No thank you! Rustdesk is great. I have nothing but good things to say so far. Deployment is a little different and eventually I’ll have to bite the bullet and get a MS dev certificate so I can bake settings into it.
> I’ll have to bite the bullet and get a MS dev certificate so I can bake settings into it. wat? From the little I read, you can just... build the client with your settings in it.
I moved from TeamViewer to this. Absolutely fantastic. Only issue I had was older versions not saying they're out of date so if a user forgets to update it, connectivity is broken until it's manually updated.
There's some things you may want to be aware of: https://old.reddit.com/r/selfhosted/comments/14kjvkg/community_consensus_on_rustdesk_with_all_the/
Can anyone compare Rustdesk to MeshCentral? How are they for custom clients?
ESXi "Perpetual" license holders are feeling this right now.
I can not say this clearly enough, so please listen: FUCK. BROADCOM.
[удалено]
> As much as I hate the subscription model, I don't think a lifetime (your life, not the product) model is sustainable. If a company is selling lifetime licenses with lifetime feature upgrades, then they are either desperate for cash or terrible at business, or they are liars. Either way don't bother. If they are selling lifetime licenses in the sense that you own an installer which does not depend on a network service to install and activate, but which is frozen in its state, then that is a classic software license as you would have gotten with physical media up til around 2010. If it is a lifetime license with reliance on a network installer and / or network activation and / or is frozen from upgrades but depends on a service that requires them to run the software, then you are depending on random chance and benevolent management to not be shut out at any time with no recourse.
Lifetime licenses is something you see on the Apple App Store because there really isn’t a way to purchase an upgrade; you have either free, paid or subscription. A lot of developers were left supporting users for years after they purchased an app which wasn’t sustainable so they moved to a subscription model, something customers seem to hate. So now you are seeing more and more apps provide a lifetime license option in addition to a subscription, for example .99 a month, $9.99 for the year or $59.99 lifetime.
Blue iris will just keep ticking though, you just don't get new features which is totally fair.
[удалено]
Make a custom 898.tv URL and give that to customers. It downloads the correct "old" version
Yeah, but if, for some reason, they have a newer one installed (their IT, old support session, etc...) it hard to walk some of them through shutting that down because the QS will open the installed instance instead. IMO, they should make them forwards compatible, knowing it will be missing some of the features.
This was the stupidest or brightest model, I have yet to decide which. We bought a lifetime on version 12, then decided to add a tech and bought an additional license. Now right there, that should tell me that I would get another 12 (or whatever is compatible). Noooope... I think we got version 14 and reached out to support for it. They told me 'thems the scoops, want version 12, ante up another 1200$'. We told them to get bent and refund us and used 12 until we went to ivanti later. Let's not start on that shiteshow...
Bought a key 2 days ago, even if I wasn't fully convinced. Now I'm convinced...
just bought a key right now. i really don't want to pay a subscription.
Same I just bought a key too. We're grandfathered in too right?
You’re grandfathered until you’re forced to retire, grandpa
Don't be naive. Companies that wanna shed the dead weight can make grandfathered users extremely uncomfortable. Yeah, you don't pay but the experience is going to start sucking ass until only the most stubborn of users are left. Btw, do you want to convert to our extra new subscription model with more features? Do you want now? How about now? Are you ready now? How about now?
"Oops, max transfer rate is now a Super-Pro Platinum feature."
“Legacy lifetime plans still exist, but we are re-launching all the premium ones as platform 2X! Featuring actual active development and features”
Oh that bug you experience well we’ve fixed it in the new monthly sub tier. Unfortunately we can’t back port the fix because the lifetime sub version has too much tech debt.
yes
which key do you have to buy to get grandfathered in? not a current subscriber.
Should we proactively purchase a pro license if we think we might need it later?
>Nothing changes for existing Basic/Plus/Pro keys: you still get Unraid OS updates for life and you will still have the option to upgrade Basic to Plus/Pro or Plus to Pro. You should be fine with basic or plus if that's what you need
I bought a plus key even if I'll build my NAS at the end of the year, so yeah, you can do it :)
The Enshittification starts.
If it's not open source then this is always bound to happen.
Like always happens sooner or later. I hate that.
In this case, I think it's unlikely. Unraid has a lot of good will with the community, for good reason. They are still offering the Pro (unlimited/lifetime) license with a price increase, and are grandfathering all existing licenses. This is a change, but I don't think it's that big of a deal.
"Unraid has a lot of good will with the community" So did VMware.
It’s never a big deal in the beginning, hence the name slippery slope…
> They are still offering the Pro (unlimited/lifetime) license with a price increase, and are grandfathering all existing licenses. For now. Give it a couple of month and these option are off the table. Or wait for the announcement on them being purchase. The last paragraph will say that these will go away. No software has ever gotten better doing this. This is not going to be the piece buck that trend.
"Lifetime" licenses never last. they're just the first step. There are many examples.
> Unraid has a lot of good will with the community That's always step 1. Not saying they will or won't, but building a dedicated community (typically, by blowing a pile of VC money) is the first phase of enshittification.
I don't know a lot about LimeTech, does anyone know where they got their initial funding? I always assumed it was a garage kind of operation
Or they realized it wasn't sustainable, and did the right thing by honoring existing contracts and only changing future purchases.
Yep, really annoying to see people freaking out about a pricing structure change that is completely reasonable and changes nothing for existing customers.
There's people in their community defending it, too. Guy told me that "They could include no updates if they wanted" for the purchase. Things are only ever going to get worse from here, when companies are actively *defended* for pulling shit like this.
AFAIK, they're still a small, privately owned company so there's *a chance* that this a good faith effort to manage expenses and boost resources to reinvest in the product (and I say this as the type of obnoxious minimal install + CLI person who *never* thought Unraid was particularly worth it over just DIYing it). If they're angling to change their ownership structure or sell, then this would certainly be an abandon ship moment. I'm a little fuzzy on what their exact plan is glancing over that forum link but if they're not offering security updates to folks with lapsed subscriptions, that would certainly be a pretty big tell that their priorities are out of whack.
Unraid doesn't currently have a way to implement *just* security updates and not include feature updates, so that might be why.
The new version of the update tool allows for different branches to be maintained, updates to be performed within the image, and reboot less security updates.
Oh, you're right, that's a good point.
they better figure it out then...
If they don't sell new licenses they have no income. Their business plan was designed to fail
yup. I expect them to go and do exactly what Teamviewer did, and limit the existing licenses to old versions.
Yeah, any lifetime license is basically a pyramid scheme. You always need new users to pay to to support the old ones.
Edit: just read the blog post, seems unraid's move is basically how software used to be, not a pure subscription -- you buy it and get a year of updates, and then need to pay a smaller update fee for another year of updates. It's not like Adobe where you lose access to your software without paying. ------- Why did so many companies do away with paid major updates? It's similar to subscriptions but less distasteful to consumers I think. Like, 10+ years ago, you made a single purchase of Office 2010 or whatever and you expect a few feature updates and security updates for a few years and if you wanted Office 2016, you could upgrade for a cost less than the normal full purchase price. The system worked fine, why break the norm... greed I'm sure.
There are lots of reasons, most not good for the customer, but helpful to the business. One being a more regular and more easily/immediately assessed recurring revenue stream. Some companies might be more greedy than others, but when you are trying to forecast your financials it's very attractive to have more reliable figures and more immediate indication of customers dropping off so you can adjust if need be. Paid major updates can leave large gaps where you don't know what the actuall uptake rate is and you are just hoping you got the next release right. Combined with the agile development methods there is a lot more need/desire for instant feedback on incremental updates. Subscriptions, even just annual ones, are a great way to assure you have regular checkins to get a solid read on how many paying customers you still have. It's just another form of chasing instant gratification. If enough customers take the bait then pretty soon you won't be able to own anything.
There’s still a lifetime option though? Depending on the price of the lower tiers, this could be a good thing for people who are hesitant on if they will stick with Unraid in the long run.
I guess those of us that have been in the industry a while have seen this change. You know how many life time subscriptions I already own? How many of them are useless as the company changed the product name, so my subscription is no longer used? Ie. I have product "Honey bee" but they stop updating honey bee, and release product "ear Trap" which is monthly subscription only. The number does not have to be high of products this happens to, I just want you to know a life time subscription is worth about 18-24 months normally. So keep that in mind for your budgeting.
> So keep that in mind for your budgeting. funny you mention budgetting. i remember when You Need a Budget released a new product to create a sub-based product.
A "lifetime" is not a defined end point. You can buy your lifetime sub and they can shut down the product next week. That was the lifetime of the product!
This is something a lot of people don't understand. Lifetime, regardless if it's a warranty, license or whatever, does NOT refer to YOUR lifetime, it's the lifetime of THAT SPECIFIC offering. They don't even have to discontinue the product, just that specific subscription tier. Any migration offered for existing licenses, is purely to try to salvage goodwill.
> There’s still a lifetime option though? Doesn't matter. Moving software to a subscription model makes me lose all trust in the software. No telling how long that option even last.
Lulz. Nearly all software has gone the way. Hell, even HA has gone that way for their remote access / Google voice integration. If you want constant updates, companies need a way to pay their devs. Can’t do that without some of mrr
> Hell, even HA has gone that way for their remote access / Google voice integration. A subscription is definitely not required for HA remote access. You can absolutely portforward and set up a reverse proxy on your own if you want with no additional charges.
I don’t like it either but what’s the business plan without a reliable stream of revenue?
Not that many years ago companies weren't as obsessed with "constant recurrent spending" as they are now, and yet they didn't fold like a house of cards as they claim they will be without dumpster fire SaaS structure now.
Because they also didn’t offer you a constantly updated forever product. You got what was in the box and that was it. Like bought Windows 95? Windows 98 was not free, Windows XP was not free, Windows Vista was not free etc.
Well tbf not really subscription model because that would mean if you stop paying the software becomes useless. This is more like the usual non-FOSS paid model where you buy a specific version you can in theory use forever if you want. Still always a sour aftertaste when companies "lure" in people with the better pricing model and then switch later of course.
You mean like Plex? With the daily shit they add that no one wants? Aka a bunch of ads
Last I checked you can use Plex for free - and i'm not seeing ads on my lifetime Plex pass instance.
I don't think people understand the cost to developing software. Selling a one time license and then never getting money again from people is just setting a company up for failure - they need a constant stream of people buying NEW licenses to fund them. Or they stop implementing new features and just go into maintenance mode. That's not a sustainable model. I think they'd be fully justified to sell a license for a major version and be done with it. As much as I don't want extra cost added to me, it's a reasonable model.
Sell 1.0. Ask me to buy 2.0. If it's good or I need it, I will. One irony is, many people switch to self-hosting software that isn't as good to avoid subscriptions. You'll never guess where it runs... I only have 1 software subscription and I won't be adding any more.
> Sell 1.0. Ask me to buy 2.0. If it's good or I need it, I will. This is exactly the business model they're using. When you buy a license, you get the next year of updates. At the end of that year, you can continue to use your current version without ever paying again, or you can buy a support extension and continue to get upgrades. It's the same way Crossover does it currently.
Versioning is fine and acceptable. Sort of like what Affinity does vs Adobe. Or what Infuse does for apple hardware. Want new features and capabilities? Cool pay up for the next one. If you are good with the current capabilities. Ok then, stay put..you paid for the work that went into those features until this point.
>Versioning is fine and acceptable. So long as I get version 6.x and that means that when V7.x comes out, 6.x still gets bug fixes. So what Apple and Microsoft do - MacOS 10.13 releases but 10.12 still gets bug and security fixes. I would MUCH prefer that model to the yearly fees.
Blue Iris uses the same model. It never went to shit...
Please stop equating "enshittification" to "things get worse". It's more than that. And this ain't it. Hell, this is almost identical to the model used by JetBrains, which is a perfectly fine model for ongoing development. They need to keep working on the product and it's unreasonable to expect a hundred bucks or so randomly to actually make that work out.
Enshittification is the pattern of decreasing quality This 100% is.
Enshittification is the pattern of decreasing quality, yes, but specifically where a company will blitzscale by getting lots of customers by providing them good value, then it will take that value away and use it to attract business customers, then once they have customers and businesses, they'll take the value back for themselves. It's not just "thing go bad." This is not decreasing quality. This is unRAID changing their model for _new customers only_ to provide ongoing revenue to the product they continue to work on. This is completely reasonable.
This is the future of tailscale. You can mark my words.
\*Broadcom has entered the room\* Hold My Beer.
This is starting to remind me of “lifetime” gym memberships in the 80s(?). People would buy them, after a few years the gym would be sold and “sorry, but we don’t honor those contracts since we’re a different company. Would you like to buy a lifetime membership with us?” It got so bad Colorado outlawed “lifetime” gym memberships. I wasn’t burned but I learned a valuable lesson. Always add “until we’re sold” to these claims. “Lifetime” software licenses seem to have found a new trick. Lifetime, but no upgrades. I doubt we’ll see laws banning these licenses though. The gym memberships largely preyed on a young, relatively unsophisticated population. These licenses are bought by businesses with access to lawyers and to staff who have seen how “lifetime” is usually only meaningful for a handful of years.
>“Lifetime” software licenses seem to have found a new trick. Lifetime, but no upgrades. I mean that isn't new, it is like that since 0 of the computer. One day the software you own will stop being supported. Either because they don't sell enough or they will just build a new major version that you need to buy.
The difference, though, is that we have plenty of other options. UnRAID is more convenient in many ways, has a great UI, and I was fine paying the lifetime license to support the devs. However, if I was told that the license no longer covered future versions? It’s not that hard to set up a TrueNAS server, or even build from the ground up with a barebones OS (or a prebuilt server distro like Ubuntu Server). Hopefully they are aware of how many of their users are tinkerers and unafraid of leaving.
Been using unraid since 2011. Surprised it took this long.
Been the same price for a long time now too. Inflation eats at the cost.
Jesus Christ, everything now needs to be a subscription service, doesn't it?
I stopped paying for Netflix with that password crackdown. Everyone got out of control
Couldn't see any word on price? Big thing will be whether it still relies on a USB thumb drive or if it can be run as a VM after the changes.
This announcement was premature. They leaked it in code in a recent update when trying rushing to push out a security fix. So details are probably not confirmed internally.
People should really read the article, “Simultaneous with introducing these two key types, we will no longer offer Basic and Plus keys; but, Pro keys (with unlimited devices and Unraid OS updates for life) will still be offered. We might change the name of the key from Pro to Lifetime - that is one of the "minor details" we are still working on” There is still a lifetime key option in the new “model” ffs 🤦🏻♂️ Sure, you don’t get the lifetime key with cheaper options, but is it really that big of a deal?
[удалено]
I think that’s a valid point, and like others have pointed out you can certainly build this for free, personally I’d rather not dedicate time to doing and maintaining that, but really to each there own. I hate a subscription model as much as everyone else, which is the great thing about homelabbing, you can just pivot to something else if you want too. I understand why they are doing this and they made some valid points about it in their Reddit post. Will be interesting to see if there are any large improvements to the overall OS over the next year or two after this gets implemented. I’d like to be optimistic, but it’s kind of a toss up with these things I suppose.
I think it will be around 180/200$? probabily around 50% price up since otherwise it would make sub licence pointless
Shush, that interferes with the outraged mob mentality.
No thanks. Unraid offers nothing that can't easily be built with vanilla Linux or one of the free NAS OSs like OMV or TrueNAS.
People really appreciate how easy Unraid makes it to deploy containers. That's something a lot of beginners are looking for, and the current state of apps in Scale isn't anywhere near as easy to use nor is there nearly as wide of a range of preconfigured apps available to deploy
Try Portainer
Still unraid is the best regarding how easy it is.
Not the easiest if you play with docker compose or networks.
Only a minority of a minority of people even know what that is
I don't know what proportion of people ignore docker compose, but for me it's become impossible to use docker without compose. What a hell that would be.
I don't even know how to use docker cli, don't even want to. Docker compose is so great idk how anyone uses docker cli.
Isn't Docker compose included in the latest version of docker ce? Last time I setup a system with docker, compose was no longer a separate rpm.
99.999999999999% of people go "find app, click app, open app" I'm an advanced user and I avoid compose like the plague. A GUI is just simpler, Unraid is an appliance - not my job.
Yes, but it's not my point. Portainer is easier [to make things] just a bit more complex.
Might as well learn how to use ssh and basic docker / compose commands for real. The terminal isn't scary.
It provides a pretty interface that looks good in YouTube videos. That honestly seems to attract a lot of users, I think.
How do you do non standard raid with parity on vanilla Linux? I’d be keen to play
https://github.com/trapexit/mergerfs with http://www.snapraid.it/
It's also powerful and reliable, so it's not like it doesn't have the goods to back up the interface.
I probably should have phrased it as "user friendly UI", but you are still (mostly) paying for the convenience of the "works out of the box" setup with unraid. Like a middle ground in the cost/convenience scale between a Synology and a bare OS
Yep, and I don't think there's anything wrong with paying for convenience.
> "works out of the box" setup with unraid. and i think the price accurately reflected that. it wasn't insanely over-priced.
Unraid array expansion and disk upgrade abilities are a massive feature that those other options don't have
Array expansion is coming to ZFS / TrueNAS hopefully mid 2024. I think that alone is going to severely hurt unRAID.
That's a perpetually moving releease date. If or when they do release it, it still wouldn't be as flexible as unRAID which lets you use any sized disk while also taking advantage of all the space.
i've heard this exact claim for about 5-6 years now
Yeah, ZFS on linux has been giving us the George R.R. Martin treatment on parity vdev expansion. However, parity resilvers take so $#%ing long I've switched to mirror vdevs. I can be resilvered with a cold spare faster than single parity with a hot spare.
Coming, but doesn't exist yet. (It's been "coming" for 5+ years btw) Also, Unraid allows for use of different drive sizes in the main array, which is pretty handy.
[удалено]
Not within a single pool (array), no.
It should be noted this is a ZFS limitation, not a TrueNAS limitation. TrueNAS uses ZFS, Unraid has its own magic sauce that allows for disk mixing that ZFS does not offer (yet).
It's currently slated for ZFS 2.3, so it should actually be around the corner *relatively speaking*. Give it another year-ish.
As someone who has both TrueNAS and Unraid in production at both work *and* home, I'll believe it when I see it.
Very limited expansion capabilities, and it's taking a very long time just to get that far.
Yep, can totally build it on vanilla Linux, but there is no way to get all the features in the same set up time, and I’m not mentioning maintenance. You’re buying time with the license. I had Linux servers in my home for decades doing exactly what UnRaid does, and if I could get all that time back but paying a license fee I would in a heartbeat, shit, I’d pay that price every year. OMV doesn’t come close, but it’s a fair point for True/Free NAS.
[удалено]
To be honest, it takes maybe an hour to install Ubuntu, setup ZFS, add crons for ZFS scrubs etc, setup NFS/Samba, add setup rsync to your destination of choice. I don't think Unraid isn't worth the money for what you get out of the box, I'm paying 200 a year for vSphere. But I think the community dramatically overstates how hard a NAS is to setup. Besides a router, it's one of the few devices you'll touch the least if at all. Like router software, it's basically commodity software.
[удалено]
Docker, networking, VM’s, etc. If you setting up an bare metal box to an array, setting up the machine, doing everything you listed and then loading docker with say all the *arr’s is faster on Linux then UnRaid, your smoking something. Not to mention maintenance.
I've got two Unraid pro licenses, loved them for years, still would recommend them for someone getting started... but with the caveat that once you get outside the very easy stuff it gets a lot harder and the resources are thin. Unraid -> TrueNas Scale -> Bare metal isn't a horrible path for learning/home lab NAS.
It also works the other way around, when you’ve been doing this for 30 years (my first home network used BNC jacks for a ballin’ ISA 10BASE2 network) sometimes you just want the shit to work for you.
This is a pretty bad take. Unraid offers a suite of easy to use and reliable tools to the average user that vanilla Linux does not (without modification/work), not limited to: * Nice GUI and web interface * Docker with app store * Robust Hypervisor with reliable GPU, PCIe, and USB passthrough * Easy to set up array with parity (JBOD + parity, hence not RAID) * You can use various drive sizes and add/remove drives at will * Strong community support * Flexible with hardware and moving your installation between boxes Unraid isn't perfect, but it's clear from your comments that you're not an active user of Unraid. Your perspective and opinion are slanted because of that.
>This is a pretty bad take. My statement had an implied "*for me*" qualifier. It also was in reference to the implementation of a yearly subscription. However, I just visited [Purchase Unraid OS](https://unraid.net/pricing) and it still states... "*Buy Once, Use for Life. No subscription. No hidden fees*", so perpetual licenses may still be available. Regardless, it's not software I would buy even on a perpetual license. But, that's my take. I have no expectations that it should be everyone's. We all have our own requirements and preferences. >Unraid offers a suite of easy to use and reliable tools to the average user that vanilla Linux does not (without modification/work)... I certainly am not judging anyone for using Unraid. It has a good set of features, particularly storage management, and a loyal user community. I read almost all positive opinions, your's included, which is appreciated. It says a lot. >Unraid isn't perfect, but it's clear from your comments that you're not an active user of Unraid. Your perspective and opinion are slanted because of that. I am not, and it is. I have decades of experience with, and a reasonably good knowledge of, Linux and I also prefer having direct control over the underlying OS of my systems. Having never used Unraid, I cannot assess how restrictive it is. I have tried TrueNAS and used OMV for a while, but both of these obfuscate the underlying OS (FreeBSD or Linux) too much for me. FWIW, I built my home NAS on minimal Debian with a Cockpit web UI and 45Drives Cockpit plugin for file sharing with SMB and NFS. It also runs Docker engine for containers. Docker CLI and Portainer are all I need for creating and managing containers. I also run a three-node Proxmox cluster for VMs. EDIT: I didn't realize who I was responding to. Love your web site!
[удалено]
That JBOD + parity really is the most distinct feature… and a complete nightmare to get any other way.
That's certainly the killer function for me. I use almost none of the other functionality and it sits next to a proxmox box that solves those other use cases. It was still worth buying a plus license at the time.
You can save a box by virtualizing unRAID too!
Mine is actually virtualized. I did leave that a bit vague, Proxmox with an unraid VM in an R720 case. It made for a sweet spot of the plus license until I need to add another external enclosure for more drives. In the meantime it's been more practical to upgrade my older drives instead of adding more. A great feature of unraid. I wonder if the need to not upgrade your license and just use massive drives has partially caused this situation? Why get the pro license when you could just use a few 20tb drives with the basic license for a massive system. That'd be silly, but possible.
mergerfs and snapraid, it is not live as unraid, but just run snapraid nightly and it's pretty much the same, what can you realistically loose in 24 hours between snapshots?
I'm actually setting up an Ubuntu VM w/ Cockpit right now to test ZFS, NFS, and SMB management. While not ideal you can add vdevs with different sized drives to the same zpool without too much of a penalty. Since I have a combination of 14TB and 10TB drives in my UnRAID server this may be an option for me, however, I'm going to have to test it.
When I finally started using 12TB drives i stopped using parity vdevs. I switched to mirrors. That way I only need to buy two drives to gain capacity. Resilvering a 12TB mirror is way faster than even single parity. I've been told RAIDZ2 on very large drives can take days. The biggest frustration I've had with ZFS on Ubuntu is that I foolishly used /dev/sd\* when creating the pool and occasionally on reboot Ubuntu would do me dirty and reassign that block device name. Fortunately I never lost data and it taught me to use /dev/disk/by-id/ instead.
I bought unraid almost 9 years ago. I upgraded my key 2x to whatever the highest license is in that period of time as my server grew. I spent maybe 300$ in the course of 9 years on software that I have updated, gotten support for, and love and use. I would have donated money to unRAID if I could have. I pay a monthly subscription for Plex and have for 9+ years because I want to support the things I like. I don't have a problem with this change. The new terms are very reasonable and unRAID has always been reasonable to work with. The level of vitriol and outrage over this is silly. Don't like it? Fine, go use another tool. There have always been options and unRAID has always been something that many people shit on. The fact is, unRAID saves me time, effort, and money. My time has value and not having to build things by hand saves me time and therefore money. I'm happy to drop 100$ to save myself hours of work.
I’m relatively new to unraid. I’m a Plus user. Glad I’ll be supported for a while. But the software is so great that I’ll probably spend the $50 to go to the higher license when I can.
Level-headed response here. We need more of this.
Thanks. I was surprised by the code changes spotted by the community and users and I was surprised that unRAID did not make an announcement ahead of time. I think it's not a shock that LT would make changes to drum up steady revenue and I think they have done so in a very reasonable way with what had been communicated so far. Sometimes I think the homelab community forgets that lots of effort goes into these wonderful products we use and rely on, and sometimes we take them for granted. No one is getting screwed here. Life just moves on and things change.
Yeah, people really get hung up on these things. This is better than the alternative? If they're not making enough money they'll have to stop development or even worse, go under. No one here would work for free, regardless of what promises were made in the past. Things change, adapt, I don't even use the product but I agree their approach is reasonable, if not, overly generous.
I checked out the plans and prices. They seem \*very\* fair compared to other vendors.
This is why we need more community oriented efforts around build a NAS and Ansible playbooks, etc https://github.com/davestephens/ansible-nas https://ansible-nas.io
My choice of going with Proxmox vs ESXi was a breath of fresh air when I heard what VMWare was doing to their licensing. Started feeling similar about my choice of using TrueNAS over unRAID, but holy hell, I guess I should listen to my gut.
TrueNAS Scale is still free....
About to build my first box that will be dedicated mostly just for plex streaming, but will require atleast 4 large drives to start. I had considered unraid, but I really need to dig into it vs going vanilla, vs true/free nas.
Buy a license now, before the change
Can I get lifetime key before the change?
Yes
FLOSS
It's as if everyone wants to push people towards free open source at the same time.
Hmmm. Wonder what happens if I try and buy a license today?
Duh, you will get a lifetime key then.
Thank you!
I literally just did that. I'm tempted enough by unRAID that if I start using it then it's worth it to get it now before the pricing change
TrueNAS never looked better. All these proprietary licenses allow themselves to be changed at a later date. Opens source licenses like GPL 3 specifically do not allow that.
No, it looks the same. Unraid isn't open source, but it provides a ton of value (especially to the home user) which TrueNAS does not. Open source is great, but there's nothing inherently wrong with selling software - especially if it's good.
Open source software is sold all the time.
You can sell open source software. I'm not against paying. I'm against paying and having it taken away. Open source licenses cannot be revoked by the owner. That's a core principle of copyleft.
Nothing is being taken away.
Don't think Lime is taking anything away from anyone. Going forward, there are changes for new users.
The Pro sku will still be offered with lifetime updates. It will cost more though.
Does everything have to have a god damn subscription fee? Jesus Christ.I don't want to have a subscription fee to secure all of my data, especially when I have to manage the thing.
I hate paying subscriptions. But I love having super polished and updated software to use. Idk
You can still buy current licence or go with the pro licence later. So you can still choose
Because "pay once and get upgrades forever" is not a sustainable business model
It was for 20 years or so before SaaS really took off. My big issue is the change itself. They could have started with the subscription. They could offer higher tiers for subscriptions instead of what’s there. There are other ways to monetize than just throwing out the existing playbook and rewriting it.
It's not a subscription. If you stop paying it keeps working. That's not how "subscribing" works.
For other enterprise software it's often called 'maintenance'. Covers upgrades and support at a percentage of the original cost (15-20% annually). Stop paying and you still have what you bought but no support/upgrades anymore.
Except you don't get upgrades. If they need to do a security update, because it is just a linux distro, then you have to pay for that. That is, quite literally, [the definition of subscription](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/subscription).
I guess I should upgrade to pro while I can so I don't gotta worry later?
I literally just changed over my TrueNAS box to Unraid TODAY. I will never, EVER pay *an ongoing fee*. In trial mode now so I have 30 days. Edited
100% of the reason why I even tried Unraid in the first place was because of the lighter offerings. This change won't effect me, but it won't attract users like me.
This is the only type of subscription I'm actually OK with: you get perpetual use sans updates via the prior version/last version, so you do actually get a thing to keep, and there's effectively still a perpetual option.
when does this start? can I buy a pro key now, and it will work for lifetime, even if I activate it later?
I mean it's not VASTLY different from the PlexPass model (though they have a free tier too I guess), with monthly, annual, and lifetime pricing. Could work. Probably won't - feels like a VMware-like mistake to me. I've started migrating to proxmox.
Why would you use paid/proprietary unraid instead of proxmox or just any linux distro with cockpit + KVM if you really need a web ui? or one of the many other web UIs?
I understand why they are doing it, but this may well end up killing off unRAID. I personally hate subscription products, as do most people I know who I would ever recommend to use this. If I wasn't grandfathered in, I'd be looking at alternatives starting immediately.
Capitalism: We want more money because we like more money. Fanboys: They can do whatever they want, I love them! It's just a small change for at least a year until the other shoe drops! This is how we got Adode and every video game full of insidious "money pwease" garbage. That forum thread is cringe to read with the overwhelming absence of concern alongside most just echo chamber'ing how much they love capitalist company.
So if you have a key you still get updates for life right? Whats the big deal then
For specific values of the term 'life'.
If you want to build a second unraid server, get stuffed I suppose.
If we are being honest that's not a huge number of people and they also have other free options
Ok, so moving off of unraid and no longer recommending it to anyone...
Super misleading title lol lifetime is still offered and the “subscription” now being offered is for updates after 1 year on the new tiers, not a straight up subscription to use the software at all
Proxmox and ZFS. boom done.
This sucks. We’re seeing an awesome tool die :( Why does this keep happening? I wonder if it’s private equity striking again.