OpenNebula Releases and Subscription Options

OpenNebula is a fully open source cloud and AI infrastructure platform distributed under the Apache License from a single source code base. Organizations use the same OpenNebula software whether they deploy the publicly available Community Releases or subscribe to the Enterprise or AI Factory offerings.

The primary difference between the public releases and the commercial subscriptions lies in the software distribution, maintenance lifecycle, and support services.

Public Community Releases provide openly available source code and binary packages for every major and minor OpenNebula release. Organizations with an Enterprise or AI Factory Subscription additionally receive access to Enterprise maintenance packages, including tested bug fixes, security patches, stability improvements, and other maintenance releases produced throughout the supported lifecycle of a version.

This follows a well-established enterprise open source model adopted by companies such as Canonical and SUSE, where the software remains fully open source while commercial subscriptions provide enterprise-grade maintenance, extended lifecycle, security updates, and technical support. The subscription defines the maintenance and support model rather than access to a different software edition or proprietary source code.

The OpenNebula documentation uses the following suffixes to indicate the subscription under which a capability is commercially supported:

  • EE — Capability supported under the Enterprise Subscription
  • AF — Capability supported under the AI Factory Subscription

These suffixes do not represent different software editions, source code bases, or licensing models. They simply identify the subscription that provides the corresponding maintenance, lifecycle, and support services.

Public Community Releases

Every OpenNebula major and minor version is released publicly as open source software under the Apache License. Public Community Releases include the complete OpenNebula platform and are freely available to all users.

Organizations can deploy these releases without restrictions and upgrade to subsequent public releases as they become available.

Enterprise Subscription

The Enterprise Subscription uses the same OpenNebula source code and software platform as the Public Community Releases. There is no separate Enterprise code base.

Enterprise Subscription customers receive:

  • Enterprise Maintenance Packages, including tested bug fixes, security patches, stability improvements, and maintenance updates throughout the supported lifecycle of each release.
  • Long-Term Support (LTS) and Support Lifecycle Extension (SLE), allowing organizations to operate selected OpenNebula versions for extended periods with continued maintenance and security updates.
  • SLA-based Technical Support through private support channels with defined response and escalation commitments.
  • Professional Services, including deployment assistance, upgrades, architecture reviews, migration services, and operational guidance.

AI Factory Subscription

The AI Factory Subscription follows the same software model and uses the same OpenNebula source code base.

It includes all Enterprise Subscription benefits together with specialized maintenance and support for AI infrastructure capabilities identified throughout the documentation with the AF suffix.

AI Factory Subscription customers receive:

  • Access to Enterprise Maintenance Packages.
  • Long-Term Support (LTS) and Support Lifecycle Extension (SLE).
  • SLA-based Technical Support and Professional Services.
  • Specialized support for AI Factory capabilities, including GPU infrastructure, automated bare-metal provisioning, AI Clusters, Kubernetes-based AI environments, and large-scale AI Factory deployments.

The AI Factory Subscription is intended for organizations deploying AI Factories, AI Gigafactories, HPC platforms, and AI Neoclouds that require enterprise-grade support for GPU-accelerated and multi-tenant AI infrastructure.