Free, Starter, Business and Enterprise define the normal commercial starting points. Licence Authority 0.16 then supplies the effective entitlement for each installation, so contracted limits and capabilities can be adjusted without creating one-off product tiers.
A fresh installation is Free from day one. When you want to evaluate the standard Enterprise platform, start the verified seven-day Enterprise-profile Trial from Product licence settings. At expiry, the installation returns directly to Free; your configuration is retained.
These are the standard base profiles. The licensing authority can explicitly extend or narrow limits, platforms, applications and individual features for a contracted licence. Installation seats and paid connectivity grace are also authority-controlled properties rather than fixed tier assumptions.
The table shows the normal profile used when a licence has no customer-specific overrides. The Central Engine enforces the effective state returned by the licensing authority.
| Default Capability | Free | Starter | Business | Enterprise |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Managed certificates | 5 | 25 | 200 | Unlimited |
| Managed parent domains | 1 | 5 | 25 | Unlimited |
| Deployment targets | 1 | Tier default | Tier default | Unlimited |
| Linux platform / Nginx / Apache | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Windows platform / IIS | - | - | ✓ | ✓ |
| Network platform + Network Operator | - | - | - | ✓ |
| Palo Alto / F5 BIG-IP / VMware vCenter | - | - | - | ✓ |
| All first-party application adapters | Restricted | Restricted | Restricted | ✓ |
| Custom / deployment plugins + Source Control | - | - | - | ✓ |
| Vendor Portal | - | - | - | ✓ |
| SSL Nexus Internal PKI / ACME CA | - | - | - | ✓ |
| MSP HUB multi-customer management | - | - | - | Optional add-on |
| Core discovery, policy, audit and reporting | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
A base-tier change or entitlement removal is non-destructive. Existing certificate records, targets, plugins and configuration remain visible; only operations requiring a capability that is no longer entitled are blocked.
MSP HUB is an optional Enterprise add-on for service providers that want one SSL Nexus control plane for their own infrastructure and multiple isolated customer estates. Client-estate capacity can be sized to the managed portfolio without creating another software tier.
The signed credential proves the licence. The live authority response defines what that licence can do now.
Each licence begins with Free, Starter, Business or Enterprise. Individual features, platforms and applications can then inherit the profile, be explicitly enabled, or be explicitly disabled.
Certificate, domain, target and vendor limits can be overridden per licence. Installation-seat allocation and paid connectivity grace are managed independently by the authority.
An organisation administrator can explicitly start the verified Trial from Settings → Product licence. For seven days the installation receives the standard Enterprise profile. Separately licensed add-ons such as MSP HUB are not included unless explicitly provided. Trial expiry does not disable SSLNexus: it returns directly to permanent Free, retains configuration and can continue automating supported smaller workloads, including Let's Encrypt. Paid connectivity grace does not extend the Trial.
SSLNexus is designed to be self-managed by a competent Linux or infrastructure administrator using the product documentation. Support is optional and separate from certificate limits.
Included with the product. Documentation, upgrade guidance and recovery procedures are designed for infrastructure teams that operate the platform themselves.
Add implementation guidance, upgrade assistance and troubleshooting when your organisation wants vendor support. Commercial response commitments can be quoted separately without forcing a higher software tier.