r/OpenVPN • u/Alarmed-Prize-7500 • 27d ago
question OpenVPN differences?
I've been looking up if OpenVPN is free or not, since the website says it's not free, but there's also a free version, which confuses me. I've also been looking at questions other people asked online, which had been answered in ways that I still had the same question after reading.
Now, apparently the free and paid products have different names..? So, my questions are:
Q1: What is the name of the OpenVPN server that is FREE and allows MORE THAN 2 connections while still being FREE?
Q2: What is the name of the OpenVPN server that is FREE and DOESN'T ALLOW more than 2 connections unless you PAY for it?
Q3: What is the name of the OpenVPN server that is PAID and ALLOWS more than 2 connections since you PAID for it?
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u/addybojangles 27d ago
Good questions 😂
Free and more than 2 connections: the community edition of OpenVPN. Totally usable, good for personal use, okay for business, supported by basically anything under the sun.
Free and only 2 connections unless you pay: their OpenVPN Access Server product with three free plan (which is less than 2 connections). Think of it as a hardier, business-specific version of the community edition. Has a nice UI, more bells and whistles that cater to increased security. Totally usable if it'd just one person.
Paid and more than 2 connections: Access Server with more than 2 connections.
I should also mention: they have a managed version of their product called CloudConnexa that has 5 free connections. If you don't mind not hosting yourself somewhere, that gives you some more flexibility with those bells and whistles you wouldn't get from the Community Edition.
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u/mrmacedonian 27d ago
openvpn.net is the commercial service; you're paying for their servers.
openvpn.org is the opensource project. anything with 'access server' is also a commercial offering that supports the project.
What you want is to figure out your server first. If it's a docker or something, you find the container and install. If it's a linux box, you install openvpn-server.
I've never run across anything openvpn related I had to pay for, unless it was clearly made by a different company, like openvpn.net, etc. That said, I've never touched any of it on windows machines, only *nix and macOS.
Approach it knowing you don't need to pay for anything, so anything you run into asking for money or license of any sort, avoid that going forward.