# Can someone provide the info around Chef licence

**URL:** <https://discourse.chef.io/t/can-someone-provide-the-info-around-chef-licence/10467>\
**Category:** Chef Infra (archive)\
**Created:** [February 22, 2017, 3:37am UTC](https://discourse.chef.io/t/can-someone-provide-the-info-around-chef-licence/10467 "2017-02-22T03:37:34Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![bkeshark](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e9bcb4/32.png) [@bkeshark](https://discourse.chef.io/u/bkeshark)\
**Post date:** [February 22, 2017, 3:37am UTC](https://discourse.chef.io/t/can-someone-provide-the-info-around-chef-licence/10467/1 "2017-02-22T03:37:34Z")

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Hello,  
Can someone provide the info around Chef licence.

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**Author:** ![svucich](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.chef.io/svucich/32/1717_2.png) [@svucich](https://discourse.chef.io/u/svucich)\
**Post date:** [February 22, 2017, 3:53am UTC](https://discourse.chef.io/t/can-someone-provide-the-info-around-chef-licence/10467/2 "2017-02-22T03:53:07Z")

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[Here](https://www.chef.io/pricing/) is the pricing and also the features available for the price/system.

Now in saying that, the free chef server system (with no paid support - only community based) has a limit of 25 nodes.

I use the free version which has Chef server, Manage and reporting. To ensure we don’t use to many licenses I remove most nodes after running the cookbooks to install all the required software as I only need to have them configured once. There is a little extra overhead involved in this:

- Cleaning up SSH keys
- Ensuring the server no longer sees the node
- Ensuring the server no longer sees the client

It isn’t a perfect way to use the system, but it does work.

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**Author:** ![Tensibai](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.chef.io/tensibai/32/29_2.png) [@Tensibai](https://discourse.chef.io/u/Tensibai)\
**Post date:** [February 22, 2017, 9:22am UTC](https://discourse.chef.io/t/can-someone-provide-the-info-around-chef-licence/10467/3 "2017-02-22T09:22:50Z")

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To clear up message above, the chef server itself is not under commercial license in any way.  
Only manage and report add-on are subject to licensing above 25 nodes.

If you don’t use the graphical interface and work with chef-dk you can register has many nodes as you wish on your chef server (as long as the underlying hardware can support the load)

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**Author:** ![bkeshark](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e9bcb4/32.png) [@bkeshark](https://discourse.chef.io/u/bkeshark)\
**Post date:** [February 23, 2017, 1:26am UTC](https://discourse.chef.io/t/can-someone-provide-the-info-around-chef-licence/10467/4 "2017-02-23T01:26:56Z")

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Thanks a lot for your response.

is Chef HA functionality also paid service?

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**Author:** ![Tensibai](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.chef.io/tensibai/32/29_2.png) [@Tensibai](https://discourse.chef.io/u/Tensibai)\
**Post date:** [February 23, 2017, 8:24am UTC](https://discourse.chef.io/t/can-someone-provide-the-info-around-chef-licence/10467/5 "2017-02-23T08:24:04Z")

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Yes.

Reference documentation is here: [https://docs.chef.io/install\_server\_ha.html](https://docs.chef.io/install_server_ha.html).

In doubt you can contact Chef to get commercial informations, it will be more accurate than me.