How much does Nebula cost?

Nebula publishes 2 tiers, from Free for Nebula up to On request for Defined Networking. The entry tier costs nothing.

What is the difference between Nebula and Defined Networking on Nebula?

Defined Networking costs On request against Free, and adds hosted control plane and enrolment, managed certificate lifecycle and revocation, policy and dns interface, vendor support.

Which networking tools can I use without paying?

3 of the 8 networking tools listed alongside Nebula have a free tier: OpenVPN, Icinga, pfSense.

Does Nebula charge per user?

The record carries a price and a billing period for each of its 2 tiers, but not the unit that price is charged in. Per-seat and flat-rate billing look identical in this data, so check the vendor's page before budgeting for a team.

Are these Nebula prices current?

They are what the catalogue entry holds, refreshed when the entry is. Vendors change pricing without notice and nobody at Softwr re-verifies each tier by hand, so treat this as a structured summary and the vendor's own pricing page as the authority.

What should I compare Nebula against before paying?

The closest networking tools in this directory are MikroTik RouterOS, Cisco Meraki, PRTG Network Monitor, OpenVPN. Each has a side-by-side comparison with Nebula covering price, platforms and features.

Networking · pricing

Nebula pricing

Nebula publishes 2 tiers. Below is each one, what it adds over the tier beneath it, and where the ladder stops being worth climbing for most people.

As of 31 August 2026, Nebula pricing is free across 2 published tiers. Figures are the vendor's list prices as recorded on this page's last check; the vendor's site is the final word.

Entry price: Free
Model: Open source, no licence fee
Tiers: 2
Free tier: Yes

Nebula plans, side by side

Every published tier in ascending order of price, with the number of features each one lists. An absence here means the record does not itemise it, not that the tier lacks it.

Nebula pricing tiers
Plan	Price	Features listed	Step up from the tier below
Nebula	Free	4	Entry tier
Defined Networking	On request	4	Priced on request

What each tier adds

The set difference between each tier's feature list and the one beneath it. Where a tier lists nothing new, the vendor has either stopped repeating the inherited list or the tier raises limits rather than adding capability, the record does not distinguish the two, so this page does not either.

Nebula

Free

The entry tier. It covers full functionality under the mit licence, no host limit, you operate the certificate authority and lighthouses, community support.

Defined Networking

On request

Over Nebula, this tier adds:

Hosted control plane and enrolment
Managed certificate lifecycle and revocation
Policy and DNS interface
Vendor support

Where Nebula stops being free

Nebula, Free

Full functionality under the MIT licence
No host limit
You operate the certificate authority and lighthouses
Community support

No paid tier on record

Nebula lists a free tier and no priced tier above it in the record we hold.

What the product covers

The full Nebula feature record, grouped as the catalogue groups it. This is the product as a whole; the record does not map every feature onto a specific tier.

Other

Certificate carried identity
Group based host firewall
Lighthouse discovery
Noise protocol encryption
Unsafe routes
Managed option

People bring Nebula in for flattening a network across several clouds and datacentres without vpc peering or route tables, very large fleets where a central policy service on the connection path is unacceptable, environments that already run an internal certificate authority and want the network to use it, replacing per host iptables rules with policy written against roles that follow the host. If that is not the job you are buying for, the alternatives to Nebula are worth a look before you commit to a tier.

How that compares in Networking

Too few networking tools in this directory publish a starting price to quote a meaningful median, so the table below is a like-for-like list rather than a ranking.

Nebula entry price against other Networking tools
Tool	Entry price	Model	Rated	Head to head
Nebula (this page)	Free	Open source, no licence fee	-
MikroTik RouterOS	On request	One-time purchase, per licence level	-	vs Nebula
Cisco Meraki	On request	quote, hardware plus mandatory recurring licence	-	vs Nebula
PRTG Network Monitor	On request	Per sensor tier, billed monthly on an annual contract	-	vs Nebula
OpenVPN	Free	Open source core is free; Access Server billed per simultaneous connection	-	vs Nebula
Icinga	Free	Open source core, with paid repository, module and support subscriptions sold separately	-	vs Nebula
pfSense	Free	Open source Community Edition, free; commercial Plus edition sold separately by Netgate	-	vs Nebula

Ratings are aggregated from third-party sources and imported with each catalogue entry, they are not reviews hosted on Softwr. How each figure is used is set out on the Nebula badges page.

Before you pay for Nebula

Three things this page cannot tell you, and all three change the bill. The record carries a price and a billing period but not the unit - per-seat and flat-rate pricing are indistinguishable in this data, so a five-person team may be looking at five times the figure above. It carries no annual rate, so any discount for paying yearly is not something this page can quote. And it carries no trial length.

What it can tell you is the shape of the ladder: 2 tiers between Free and On request, with the jump itemised above. Because there is a free tier, the cheapest way to answer the rest is to use it before paying anything.

Nebula runs on linux, macos, windows, ios, android, freebsd, and is published by Defined Networking (Nebula maintainers) of United States. The full record is on the Nebula review, and the rest of the category is under best networking tools.

Nebula pricing on the vendor's own site

Nebula pricing questions

How much does Nebula cost?: Nebula publishes 2 tiers, from Free for Nebula up to On request for Defined Networking. The entry tier costs nothing.
Does Nebula have a free plan?: Yes. The Nebula tier costs nothing and covers full functionality under the mit licence, no host limit, you operate the certificate authority and lighthouses.
What is the difference between Nebula and Defined Networking on Nebula?: Defined Networking costs On request against Free, and adds hosted control plane and enrolment, managed certificate lifecycle and revocation, policy and dns interface, vendor support.
Which networking tools can I use without paying?: 3 of the 8 networking tools listed alongside Nebula have a free tier: OpenVPN, Icinga, pfSense.
What am I actually paying for with Nebula?: The record lists 6 features across 1 area: other. In practice it is brought in for flattening a network across several clouds and datacentres without vpc peering or route tables, very large fleets where a central policy service on the connection path is unacceptable, environments that already run an internal certificate authority and want the network to use it.
Does Nebula charge per user?: The record carries a price and a billing period for each of its 2 tiers, but not the unit that price is charged in. Per-seat and flat-rate billing look identical in this data, so check the vendor's page before budgeting for a team.
Are these Nebula prices current?: They are what the catalogue entry holds, refreshed when the entry is. Vendors change pricing without notice and nobody at Softwr re-verifies each tier by hand, so treat this as a structured summary and the vendor's own pricing page as the authority.
What should I compare Nebula against before paying?: The closest networking tools in this directory are MikroTik RouterOS, Cisco Meraki, PRTG Network Monitor, OpenVPN. Each has a side-by-side comparison with Nebula covering price, platforms and features.