Best offer on record: Unleash Open Source — free self-hosted server. 3 verified findings, checked 2026-10-22.
Offers
Unleash Open Source — free self-hosted server high confidence
Self-hosted Unleash server is free with no seat limit ('Unleash Open Source is free and has no seat limit'). Hard caps on the OSS build: max 1 project, 2 environments, 5,000 feature flags per instance; no MAU or API-traffic limits; feature-flag metric retention only 2 days. Excluded from OSS: SSO (SAML/OIDC), SCIM, granular RBAC, change requests/four-eyes approvals, user groups, audit/access logs, support SLA. License as of v8.0.0 (mid-2026): source repo + unleash-server npm are AGPLv3, but the official open-source Docker images remain Apache-2.0, so unmodified container deployment triggers no AGPL obligations; client SDKs keep permissive licenses. For students: self-host on any small VPS or locally with Docker Compose + Postgres; no account, email, or CC needed.
Eligibility
Everyone (students, startups, enterprises) — no .edu email, no funding cap, no credit card, no trial required; self-hosted so no region limits either.
How to claim
Free forever (perpetual), no renewal. Claim: docker pull / Helm chart / npm 'unleash-server' and run with PostgreSQL — no signup. Limits: 1 project, 2 environments, 5,000 flags, 2-day metric retention on OSS.
Expiry
None — perpetual. AGPLv3 licensing effective from v8.0.0 (announced 2026-06-02); official Docker images stay Apache-2.0.
Gotchas
AGPLv3: if you MODIFY the source and expose it over a network, you must share your source or buy a commercial license; unmodified images are fine. 5,000-flag and 1-project/2-environment caps. Enterprise features (SSO/RBAC/SCIM) cost extra ($75/seat/mo).
14-day free trial of Unleash Pay-As-You-Go (Cloud or self-hosted paid) high confidence
'Start a 14-day trial with no credit card required' (pricing FAQ: 'How much does Unleash cost?'). Trial of the $75/seat/month Pay-As-You-Go plan, which includes unlimited flags/projects/environments/experiments, 53M API requests/month (Cloud; $5 per million overage), 90-day metric retention, SSO, RBAC, SOC2 Type II + GDPR, audit logs up to 2 years, 99.9% uptime. Cloud PAYG bills monthly with no long-term commitment; self-hosted PAYG bills annually with a 5-seat minimum.
Eligibility
Anyone — email-only signup; no .edu email, no startup age/funding cap, no region limits, and credit card explicitly NOT required for the trial.
How to claim
Claim: getunleash.io/pricing → 'Start Free Trial' (links to /plans/enterprise-payg); sign up via auth.app.getunleash.io (email-only); provision a Cloud or self-hosted trial; 14-day window, no CC entered.
Expiry
Trial lasts 14 days; then PAYG billing starts ($75/seat/mo — monthly for Cloud, annual for self-hosted with 5-seat minimum).
Gotchas
Trial, not a free tier — nothing continues free afterwards except self-hosted OSS. Cloud overage beyond 53M requests: $5/million. Self-hosted PAYG forces a 5-seat annual commitment post-trial. 90-day metric retention on paid plans.
Education / student license or startup program — NONE published high confidence
No student/education discount, education license, trial credits, or startup program exists on getunleash.io as of 2026-10-22: homepage, pricing page, open-source page, pricing FAQ, and the full 2025–2026 blog index show no such offer. The only free paths are self-hosted OSS and the 14-day trial. FAQ 'Is there a free version of Unleash?' answers with OSS only.
Eligibility
n/a — offer not found; students and startups get the same terms as everyone else (free OSS self-host + 14-day trial, no CC).
How to claim
n/a — no claim path because no such offer is published.
Expiry
n/a
Gotchas
Do not promise students/startups a discount that does not exist; the $35M Series B (2026-03-04) and 500+ paying-customer enterprise focus make a startup program unlikely.
Changes in 2025–2026 vs the "known so far" baseline: (1) LICENSE CHANGE — Unleash moved the primary GitHub repo and unleash-server npm package from Apache-2.0 to AGPLv3 effective from v8.0.0, announced 2026-06-02 ("Evolving Our Open Source Commitment: Unleash is Moving to AGPLv3"); official OSS Docker images remain Apache-2.0 and client SDKs keep permissive licenses, so unmodified self-hosting stays friction-free. (2) The baseline claim that Unleash Cloud has a free "Personal Use" tier with paid tiers starting ~$99/mo is OUTDATED: the current getunleash.io pricing page lists only Open Source (free self-hosted), Pay-As-You-Go at $75/seat/month, and Custom Enterprise — no Personal Use or free hosted tier is offered or even mentioned; if a Personal Use tier existed it was retired/renamed in 2025–2026 with no public sunset announcement found in the blog index. (3) Pricing level: paid entry is now $75/seat/month (previously cited ~$99/mo). (4) Domain/site migration: www.unleash.io and unleash.io are unreachable from this environment (TLS/SSL errors on every path tried); the live official site is getunleash.io (docs.getunleash.io, app.getunleash.io, auth.app.getunleash.io). (5) $35M Series B (2026-03-04, led by One Peak; 500+ paying customers, doubled ARR 3 consecutive years) signals enterprise focus; no startup or education programs were announced with it. Note: WebSearch budget was exhausted in this session, so change-detection relied on the official site's blog index (titles) plus pricing/FAQ/upgrade/open-source/license pages read today (all high-confidence official reads).