CODESYS’ new payment model allows licensing without hardware dependency. At the core of app-based licensing are eight core license levels to choose from, plus optional add-ons for advanced features.
Application-based licensing starts at a very low price for small applications and grows with the complexity and size of larger projects. Easy upgrades are available as needed to grow with your app. Each of these options with a different price from €29 to €599.
To these 8 categories you can add advanced functions such as OPC-UA, Softmotion Axes, Softmotion Axes Groups and CNC as well as Visualization
Customers running a small or medium-sized application on an industrial PC can expect cheaper licenses. Customers who had a very large application on a small ARM device could see a price increase. However, very complex applications also have many I/Os and/or drives. The price of a SoftPLC is usually not significant.
The CODESYS Development System provides all the data to select the appropriate license. This means that at any time you will only have to pay the price difference with the higher license. So it doesn’t matter in terms of price whether you buy a smaller license first and then upgrade, or whether you buy the larger license immediately.
There is a tendency to group many virtual controllers into a single, very powerful server. Of course, a license fee must also be paid for each virtual PLC. Without this license change, all licenses for that platform would have to come from the most expensive category. Codesys virtual control will begin early next year exclusively with the new licensing model.
CODESYS Application-Based Runtime Licenses provide truly hardware-independent licenses to CODESYS customers. Application-based licensing scales with the scope of the application running on any CODESYS SoftPLC-compatible platform. The scope of the application is defined by the number of I/O channels, the number of fieldbus networks, the number of variables displayed, the code size, and additional options such as SoftMotion. The device view in the CODESYS development system displays details of the scope of the application in a CODESYS project for licensing purposes.
To operate a CODESYS-compatible SoftPLC, four components are needed:
- CODESYS development system
- Hardware
- SoftPLC installation
- License
Application-based licenses are available for all CODESYS Control SL platforms starting with version 4.9.0.0 or higher, and CODESYS Development System V3.5 SP19 patch 10 or higher.