How much does VuFind cost?

VuFind publishes 2 tiers, from Free for Community Edition up to $100/month for Hosted (via partners). The entry tier costs nothing.

What is the difference between Community Edition and Hosted (via partners) on VuFind?

Hosted (via partners) costs $100/month against Free, and adds everything in community, managed hosting, custom theming, professional support.

Which library & archives tools can I use without paying?

5 of the 8 library & archives tools listed alongside VuFind have a free tier: ArchivesSpace, CollectiveAccess, DSpace, Archivematica, Evergreen ILS.

What am I actually paying for with VuFind?

The record lists 30 features across 6 areas: core, integrations, security, deployment, platform, localization. In practice it is brought in for library discovery portal, opac replacement, federated search.

Does VuFind 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 VuFind 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 VuFind against before paying?

The closest library & archives tools in this directory are Ex Libris Alma, CONTENTdm, ArchivesSpace, CollectiveAccess. Each has a side-by-side comparison with VuFind covering price, platforms and features.

Library & Archives · pricing

VuFind pricing

VuFind 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.

Entry price: Free
Model: Open-source
Tiers: 2
Free tier: Yes

VuFind 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.

VuFind pricing tiers
Plan	Price	Features listed	Step up from the tier below
Community Edition	Free	6	Entry tier
Hosted (via partners)	$100/month	6	+$100/month, 6 more features

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.

Community Edition

Free

The entry tier. It covers faceted search, ils integration, federated search, user accounts, social features, community support.

Hosted (via partners)

$100/month

Over Community Edition, this tier adds:

Everything in Community
Managed hosting
Custom theming
Professional support
Regular updates
Integration assistance

Where VuFind stops being free

Community Edition, Free

Faceted search
ILS integration
Federated search
User accounts
Social features
Community support

Hosted (via partners), $100/month

The first thing you pay for:

Everything in Community
Managed hosting
Custom theming
Professional support
Regular updates
Integration assistance

What the product covers

The full VuFind 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.

Core

Faceted search
ILS integration
Federated search
User accounts and lists
Social features
Mobile-friendly interface
Customizable theming
MARC record display
Linked data support

Integrations

Koha
Alma
Evergreen
Symphony
Solr
Summon
EBSCO

Security

LDAP
Shibboleth
CAS
OAuth

Deployment

Self-hosted deployment
Cloud deployment

Platform

Web support
Api support

Localization

English language support
German language support
French language support
Spanish language support
Finnish language support
Dutch language support

People bring VuFind in for library discovery portal, opac replacement, federated search, custom discovery interface. If that is not the job you are buying for, the alternatives to VuFind are worth a look before you commit to a tier.

How that compares in Library & Archives

Too few library & archives 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.

VuFind entry price against other Library & Archives tools
Tool	Entry price	Model	Rated	Head to head
VuFind (this page)	Free	open-source	-
Ex Libris Alma	On request	subscription	-	vs VuFind
CONTENTdm	$1495/year	subscription	-	vs VuFind
ArchivesSpace	Free	open-source	-	vs VuFind
CollectiveAccess	Free	-	-	vs VuFind
DSpace	Free	open-source	-	vs VuFind
Archivematica	Free	-	-	vs VuFind

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 VuFind badges page.

Before you pay for VuFind

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 $100/month, 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.

VuFind runs on linux, web, and is published by VuFind Community of Villanova, PA. The full record is on the VuFind review, and the rest of the category is under best library & archives tools.

VuFind pricing on the vendor's own site

VuFind pricing questions

How much does VuFind cost?: VuFind publishes 2 tiers, from Free for Community Edition up to $100/month for Hosted (via partners). The entry tier costs nothing.
Does VuFind have a free plan?: Yes. The Community Edition tier costs nothing and covers faceted search, ils integration, federated search. Paying starts at $100/month for Hosted (via partners).
What is the difference between Community Edition and Hosted (via partners) on VuFind?: Hosted (via partners) costs $100/month against Free, and adds everything in community, managed hosting, custom theming, professional support.
Which library & archives tools can I use without paying?: 5 of the 8 library & archives tools listed alongside VuFind have a free tier: ArchivesSpace, CollectiveAccess, DSpace, Archivematica, Evergreen ILS.
What am I actually paying for with VuFind?: The record lists 30 features across 6 areas: core, integrations, security, deployment, platform, localization. In practice it is brought in for library discovery portal, opac replacement, federated search.
Does VuFind 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 VuFind 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 VuFind against before paying?: The closest library & archives tools in this directory are Ex Libris Alma, CONTENTdm, ArchivesSpace, CollectiveAccess. Each has a side-by-side comparison with VuFind covering price, platforms and features.