Introducing changes to Nimble Streamer licensing

TLDR: Each instance of Nimble Streamer starting version 4 must be registered in WMSPanel

Our team started the development of Nimble Streamer in December of 2012 and released it in early 2013. We started this product to respond to the needs of the streaming industry. People needed an affordable tool which could help them solve their basic streaming tasks at a low cost. So, we responded by creating a basic smart caching streaming server which we called Nimble Streamer. And we put it out as a freeware: people could use the server for free and pay only for extra web service for setup and stats.

Now, a decade later, Nimble Streamer is a multi-functional software media server which is used by thousands of organizations across the globe in all kinds of verticals. It’s one of the few software products on the market capable of building full-featured streaming infrastructure.

Over the years the cost model has always remained the same: it was a freeware and people paid us for Nimble instances only if they needed the web UI of WMSPanel or add-ons like Transcoder and Addenda. The users without WMSPanel paid nothing while getting all updates, features and bug fixes via publicly available repositories. This zero-cost model persisted despite the fact that Nimble was continuously evolving into a much bigger product which required more people to develop, maintain and improve the quality.

It's time to make change.

We’ve been reluctant to change the freeware licensing for the past decade, however, it’s time to move forward.

1. Starting from version 4, any Nimble Streamer instance must be registered in an active account of WMSPanel.
2. All new features, improvements and bug fixes will be added only in Nimble version 4.x.
3. If the WMSPanel account has been removed due to the end of trial period or subscription deactivation, then Nimble Streamer must be uninstalled or downgraded to version 3.

What about active WMSPanel customers with paid accounts?

Nothing changes for our existing subscribed customers. If you have an active WMSPanel subscription, this will not affect you. We want people to use Nimble Streamer instances with WMSPanel, so if you do, you’re all set. You may use any version of Nimble Streamer with your WMSPanel account.

What about existing standalone Nimble instances of version 3.x or older?

A lot of people use Nimble Streamer versions 3.x without WMSPanel because it just works fine for them. That’s good, so keep using version 3, it will remain fully operable.

We want to make sure that your existing workflow doesn’t break just because our licensing has changed in the background, however, if your server auto-upgrades to 4.x please downgrade it back to any 3.x version.

The 3.x branch will still be available for download and usage. And if you occasionally upgrade to version 4, you can always downgrade back to 3.x branch.

If you want to run the latest supported version or want our team’s support, please register a WMSPanel account and subscribe with whatever instances you have in your fleet.

What if my Nimble instance cannot be registered in the WMSPanel?

Contact us to see if we can provide you with some activation options for that case. 

When will these changes be applied?

Version 4 of Nimble Streamer will be released in early March of 2023.

Any other questions?

Please contact us if you have any questions or concerns about this new licensing model.