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Tiers & Deployment Models

Calabi is a self-hosted data platform — you deploy it on your own infrastructure and your data never leaves your cloud account. Four tiers control which modules are active, how many users and assets are supported, and which deployment method is used.

Deployment Overview​

Community Edition — FreeDocker Compose · 7 containers · 5 users · 500 assets
Quick Startcurl -fsSL https://get.calabi.ai | bash
No License KeyCE mode enabled automatically
Active ModulesCatalogue · BI Analytics · Data Governance
Add license.key to unlock
Starter — $29 / user / monthHelm · 12 containers · 25 users · 10K assets
Helm Installhelm install calabi calabi/calabi -f values-starter.yaml
License KeyJWT RS256 — offline validation, no phone-home
+ModulesData Engineering · Data Quality · Notebooks · IDE
Upgrade values file
Professional — $79 / user / monthHelm · 17 containers · 100 users · 100K assets · SSO
Helm Upgradehelm upgrade calabi calabi/calabi -f values-professional.yaml
+ModulesCalabi ML · AI Builder · AI Chat · Calabi Automate
SSOSAML 2.0 · OIDC · SCIM provisioning
Upgrade values file
Enterprise — Custom pricingHelm · 22+ containers · Unlimited · Full governance
+ModulesCloud Operations · Monitoring · Compliance · Logs
Advanced GovernanceAudit logs · Custom RBAC · Row-level security
SupportDedicated SRE · 1-hour SLA · Priority patching
All tiers run on your infrastructure — same images, different modules unlocked by license key

How It Works​

All tiers use the same Docker images from public.ecr.aws/calabi/. The tier you're on determines:

  1. Which containers deploy — controlled by Helm values-{tier}.yaml
  2. What the UI unlocks — controlled by the license.key JWT file
  3. User and asset limits — enforced by the calabi-license-proxy service

Upgrading is a single command — no data migration, no image swap, no downtime:

# Upgrade from Starter → Professional
helm upgrade calabi calabi/calabi \
  -f values-professional.yaml \
  --set global.licenseKey="$(cat license.key)"

Tier Comparison​

CEStarterProfessionalEnterprise
PriceFree$29/user/mo$79/user/moContact us
DeploymentDocker ComposeHelmHelmHelm
Max Users525100Unlimited
Max Assets50010,000100,000Unlimited
License KeyNoneRequiredRequiredRequired
AWS MarketplaceFree listingAvailableAvailableAvailable

Modules by Tier​

ModuleCEStarterProfessionalEnterprise
Calabi Catalogue (Search, Lineage, Glossary)✓✓✓✓
CalabiIQ (Dashboards, SQL Lab)✓✓✓✓
Data Governance (Tags, Classification, Owners)✓✓✓✓
Data Engineering (Connect, Pipelines, Notebooks, IDE)—✓✓✓
Data Quality (Tests, Profiling, Alerts)—✓✓✓
Calabi ML (Experiments, Model Registry)——✓✓
AI Agent (Natural Language Q&A)——✓✓
AI Builder (RAG Pipelines, Chatflows)——✓✓
AI Chat (Local LLMs, Private Inference)——✓✓
Calabi Automate (Workflow Automation)——✓✓
Cloud Operations (Query, Compliance, Cost)———✓
Monitoring & Logs (Metrics, Alerts, Audit)———✓
SSO (SAML 2.0 · OIDC · SCIM)——✓✓
Custom RBAC Roles———✓
Row-Level Security———✓
Audit Logs——✓✓ (7yr retention)
SupportGitHub issuesEmail 48hrPriority 8hrDedicated 1hr

CE — Community Edition​

The fastest way to try Calabi. One command, no license key needed:

curl -fsSL https://get.calabi.ai | bash

This downloads a docker-compose.yaml and starts 7 containers on your machine or VM:

ContainerRole
calabi-uiBranded Calabi interface
calabi-gatewayRequest routing and path-based proxy
calabi-license-proxyCE limit enforcement
calabi-catalogueCatalogue backend
calabi-iqCalabiIQ (BI Analytics)
databaseShared database
search-engineSearch index

CE is ideal for: local evaluation, small teams, developer sandboxes, and POCs.

Starter, Professional & Enterprise — Helm​

Paid tiers are deployed via Helm from the public chart registry:

helm repo add calabi https://helm.calabi.ai
helm repo update

# Community Edition (no license key)
helm install calabi calabi/calabi

# Starter
helm install calabi calabi/calabi \
  -f values-starter.yaml \
  --set global.licenseKey="$(cat license.key)"

# Professional
helm install calabi calabi/calabi \
  -f values-professional.yaml \
  --set global.licenseKey="$(cat license.key)"

# Enterprise
helm install calabi calabi/calabi \
  -f values-enterprise.yaml \
  --set global.licenseKey="$(cat license.key)"

See the Deployment Architecture page for the full Helm chart structure, values reference, and upgrade guide.

License Key System​

Paid tiers ship with a license.key file — a signed JWT (RS256) verified offline by the calabi-license-proxy service. No internet connection or phone-home is required. The key encodes:

{
  "tier": "professional",
  "modules": ["bi", "data-engineering", "data-quality", "data-science"],
  "maxUsers": 50,
  "maxAssets": 50000,
  "features": { "sso": true, "rbac": true, "audit": true },
  "exp": 1735689600
}
  • CE fallback: An expired or missing key gracefully falls back to CE mode with a banner prompt
  • Air-gap safe: License validation works fully offline after the initial image pull
  • Upgrade: Add a new license.key file and run helm upgrade — features unlock instantly

AWS Marketplace​

Calabi is available on AWS Marketplace as a Helm-based container product — the same deployment method as Confluent and other enterprise data platforms.

ListingTierBilling
Calabi Community EditionCEFree
Calabi ProfessionalProfessionalPer active user / month
Calabi EnterpriseEnterpriseCustom contract

After subscribing, you receive a Marketplace-issued license key and ECR image access. Usage metering (active users, managed assets) is reported automatically to AWS — you are billed through your existing AWS account.

What's Next​