Suprising user limit in 6.5.0

[MatthiasKuehneEllerhold]

Description:

I've upgraded to 6.5.0 and was greeted by "registration needed". I did that... a now a pro plan trial was activated.
I do not want any trial. So I disabled it.
Now all of a sudden there is a user limit of 25! With the option to pay thousands of dollars per year to keep using rocketchat.

Nothing of the above was mentioned in the changelog.

Steps to reproduce:

1. Have a running rocketchat version < 6.5.0
2. Update to 6.5.0

Expected behavior:

I expected either to continue using the free plan or be informed that the free plan is going away and Im supposed to pay thousands of dollars per year to continue using RocketChat.

Actual behavior:

See Description above.

Server Setup Information:

• Version of Rocket.Chat Server: 6.4.8 => 6.5.0
• Operating System: Debian
• Deployment Method: tar
• Number of Running Instances: 1
• DB Replicaset Oplog: active
• NodeJS Version: 14.21.3
• MongoDB Version: 6.0

Client Setup Information

• Desktop App or Browser Version: 3.9.10
• Operating System: Mac OS Sonoma

[himpierre]

You can switch back to the Community Version by "cancel subscription" on the subscription page.

[MatthiasKuehneEllerhold]

As stated in the description: there is user limit of 25 then.

[himpierre]

Community Version != Starter Plan Am 4. Dezember 2023 11:29:03 MEZ schrieb "Matthias Kühne" ***@***.***>:

…

As stated in the description: there is user limit of 25 then.

[himpierre]

No, you don't need to revert to 6.4.8. I have CE 6.5.0 running without user limit. Am 4. Dezember 2023 11:35:03 MEZ schrieb Marko Tomasovic ***@***.***>:

…

Yeah you'll need to revert to 6.4.8 if you need more than 25. They gotta pay their bills as well I guess :)

[etaormm]

[MatthiasKuehneEllerhold]

According to every link provided in the admin page and on rocket.chat there is no more community version.
See https://www.rocket.chat/pricing

[MatthiasKuehneEllerhold]

Sadly I cant test atm because I cant interrupt the services again for a lengthy period of time that an upgrade and rollback would entail.
Ill have to test again tonight.

[etaormm]

According to every link provided in the admin page and on rocket.chat there is no more community version. See https://www.rocket.chat/pricing

That is true, but there is also this post where they state that you can still use Community - you just have to cancel your Starter subscription.

https://www.rocket.chat/blog/new-starter-pro-plans

[rodrigok]

@MatthiasKuehneEllerhold thanks for your question. On 6.5 we've introduced a free plan, which contains many of our paid features with a limit of 25 users to help small teams to grow. The new free plan is applied automatically for everyone to test it, for installations with more than 25 users a trial of the pro plan is applied for the test.

You have the option to cancel the trial at the bottom of the subscription page, it will re-apply the free license. If you have the free license you can cancel it in the same place to move back to the community without user limits.

We will keep improving our communication to make those options clear to everyone.

Thanks @himpierre and @etaormm for the explanations 😄

[engelgabriel]

Hello, I'm Gabriel Engel, the founder of Rocket.Chat. I want to clarify that there is no new limitation for community use. We've recently introduced a plan offering most enterprise features for free to groups with fewer than 25 users. For those with more users, you have the opportunity to try the enterprise features. After the trial period, the system will automatically revert to the community version. However, you have the option to bypass the trial in the admin settings. I emphasize that we are not imposing any restrictions; instead, we're providing the enterprise version free to small teams and inviting larger teams to experience it. Let's view this as the positive initiative it is. For more details, please visit our forum: Rocket.Chat Forum Link.

[MatthiasKuehneEllerhold]

Ive upgraded now again and had to cancel my unwanted subscription two times. First the trial I didnt want and secondly the starter plan I didnt want. It wasnt obvious at all that pressing the same button twice made any difference.

After that it has gone back to the community edition it seems.

• No consent was given for the trial.
• No consent was given for the starter plan.
• No information was given that upgrading to 6.5.0 would prompt everyboy to give an administrative email address to register a workspace.
• No information was given in any of the linked pages that the community version still exists.

So for now it works, but this leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

Feel free to close this issue or rectify any of the points above.

[kertiskz]

I don't understand where I can change this tariff plan that I didn't ask for?

[krumelmonster]

It is configured in Administration/Workspace/Subscription, however we where still unable to create new users after switching to community (Seat limit reached) until after restarting the server and pressing Sync license update (found on the upper right of the Administration/Workspace/Subscription page). It seems that RocketChat will slowly move to make the Community version unusable, the way 6.5.0 has been done sends a clear message.

That such a breaking change is not even documented in the changelog smells of malice, especially considering how this is being communicated. I received this email right after upgrading to 6.5.0:

*Your Rocket.Chat workspace named [...] configured
to be accessed at [...] is now on the Rocket.Chat Starter
plan. *

The Starter plan is an excellent starting point for smaller teams to collaborate
securely and effectively.

Your team now has access to nearly all security, team collaboration and
omnichannel features for up to 25 users and 100 monthly active contacts (MAC).

If your team outgrows the Starter plan limits you can upgrade to a paid plan [tracking URL]

📉

[keros]

This was a funny start into the day.
snap auto updated to 6.5.0 in the night
snap revert works but the old 6.4.8 version does not run with the already migrated datastore. So revert is broken nice.

As @MatthiasKuehneEllerhold already mentioned no consent was given to upgrade from community edition to trial (or anything else). But 6.5.0 simply does it nice.
A admin needs to register a workspace with his e-mail for license updates, notifications of critical vulnerabilities and access to Rocket.Chat Cloud services reasons. For comunity edition this makes no sense nice.
This is also not skippable #31163 nice.
At the time of this writing the [Terms and Conditions](https://rocket.chat/terms) on the Register your workspace site bring you to a Page not found site nice and trustworthy.
We now reverted to a backup and stopped snap from auto updateing until there is a fixed version. Which means wir are maybe at risk with an old 6.4.8 version nice.

Don't get me wrong. Thank you for all the work you put into rocketchat. Thank you for the free community edition. We really like this product.
But this update to 6.5.0 was at least a bad and untrustworthy move.
Please consider the feedback and fix this in the next realeases.

[TheDom42]

This was a funny start into the day. snap auto updated to 6.5.0 in the night snap revert works but the old 6.4.8 version does not run with the already migrated datastore. So revert is broken nice.

Thank you. Exactly my experience today! Without this thread, I wouldn't even be aware, that the CE still exists. Even AFTER searching specifically for it, I wasn't able to find it. The blog post from last week is NOT easily findable.

Don't get me wrong. Thank you for all the work you put into rocketchat. Thank you for the free community edition. We really like this product. But this update to 6.5.0 was at least a bad and untrustworthy move. Please consider the feedback and fix this in the next releases.

To even further extend this point - we are using Rocket Chat since mid-2020 and we had several occasions, where features would just be taken away by a snap auto-update without early notification. After registering the server last year (to regain mobile notifications), the sales team sent 10(!) emails (in a weekly manner) to get us to sign up for the paid version. To me, even now, it is unclear, what the features of the CE are in comparison to the starter plan. To me, this is just a weird and sketchy business practice.
As @keros said - thank you for designing and releasing RC. But please, please make sure that people are notified about such very significant changes.

[Gummikavalier]

The main thing here is that you (the devs and the product team) are developing and selling an on-premises communications system. Your promise to your customers is privacy.

The solution offered here to enable Community Edition again would be registering first, which is not applicable in all common deployment scenarios of RC.

It is a security and privacy issue. There are lots of RC instances that are locked into 6.4.x until this one is resolved.

I understand the need of getting a full picture of usage and possible clientele of RC. But it is a minimum prerequisite of an on-premises software product that they don't have an online dependency to cloud services for running them.

Registering online bleeds information such as the IP address of the system (only to mention this most obvious one). This is not acceptable. The minimum that is required for airgapped system is that it can be registered offline by a separate email (even by paper mail), and content of that email is visible and clear. And even then it should be one time only requirement to remain operational in all situations without any nasty surprises to the operation later.

[Gummikavalier]

A small addition to above.

Can the developers confirm what is a state of an airgapped CE system that has already been offline-registered to cloud.rocket.chat before upgrade to RC 6.5?

Does the online downgrade requirement trigger for these instances?

[TheDom42]

Does the online downgrade requirement trigger for these instances?

I'm not entirely sure if the offline registration is something else, but we had our workspace registered before the 6.5.0 upgrade (see above; to use the cloud push gateway). We also needed to "Cancel Subscription" in the workspace to get back to CE.

[Gummikavalier]

Does the online downgrade requirement trigger for these instances?

I'm not entirely sure if the offline registration is something else, but we had our workspace registered before the 6.5.0 upgrade (see above; to use the cloud push gateway). We also needed to "Cancel Subscription" in the workspace to get back to CE.

So it might work depending whether the cancel subscription button wants to connect to cloud.rocket.chat or if it is local only.

For previously unregistered ones the issue mentioned here would stump the completely unregistered air gapped systems, at least:
#31163

[Gummikavalier]

I did an upgrade of our offline registered CE instance. (There is an option for offline registration in the cloud.rocket.chat and it worked at least with version RC 6.4.8.)

After the upgrade to RC 6.5.0 the Starter Edition 25 user limit and subscription cancellation requirement did not trigger for this one. It started, and remained, as Community Edition.

[filefi]

is there any way to downgrade to v6.4.8?

[engelgabriel]

Dear Rocket.Chat Community, I've been following the discussions here regarding our recent 6.5 release and the concerns about the automatic enrollment into a trial of our enterprise version. I want to openly address these concerns and provide clarity on our intentions and actions moving forward.

Firstly, I apologize for the lack of clear communication regarding this change and any inconvenience or concerns it may have caused. Our goal was to allow our users to experience the additional features available in the enterprise version, but we realize that the way we implemented this was not in line with our community's expectations, especially regarding transparency and consent.

Regarding privacy concerns, please be assured that protecting your data and respecting your privacy are paramount to us. The automatic enrollment into the trial version did not change the way we handle your data. We adhere strictly to privacy laws and guidelines, and your data remains secure and private.

We have taken your feedback seriously and are taking the following actions:

• Improving Transparency: We are committed to being more transparent in our communication, especially regarding significant changes in our releases. We will ensure that all changes, especially those affecting user experience and privacy, are clearly communicated in our release notes and other channels.

• Revisiting Consent Mechanisms: We are reviewing our processes to ensure that any changes requiring user consent are implemented in a way that is clear and straightforward, allowing our users to make informed decisions.

• Development of a Reversion Tool: We understand the need for greater control over software updates. As a result, we are developing a tool that will allow users to easily revert to previous versions if they are not satisfied with an update. This tool will provide more flexibility and ensure that you can maintain a setup that best suits your needs. Until our new reversion tool is developed, users who wish to revert to the previous version can do so by manually modifying the database version record and reinstalling the previous build. This process should be done with caution.

We value the trust you place in Rocket.Chat and are committed to maintaining that trust through transparency, responsiveness, and continuous improvement.

Thank you for your support and for bringing your concerns to our attention. We are dedicated to rectifying this situation and ensuring Rocket.Chat remains a reliable and user-centric platform.

[turboyz]

After one month since the last message from @engelgabriel, I've noticed there's no mention of the community version on the pricing page at https://www.rocket.chat/pricing. It's essential to highlight that Rocket.Chat originated from the community, and it appears the current focus is solely on companies and enterprises. Please consider acknowledging the community version, as it is the very reason Rocket.Chat exists.

This is truly frustrating. I dislike it when open-source projects are influenced by a profit-driven business mindset.

In case things take a turn for the worse, I'm exploring a Plan B and searching for a straightforward open-source chat project. A simply one with chat only.

I'm also annoyed by constantly receiving messages that force me to upgrade. If something is working well, why should I be compelled to upgrade it every 2-3 months?

[omegaeducacional]

Depois de um mês desde a última mensagem do , notei que não há nenhuma menção à versão da comunidade na página de preços em https://www.rocket.chat/pricing. É essencial destacar que o Rocket.Chat se originou da comunidade, e parece que o foco atual é apenas em empresas e empreendimentos. Por favor, considere reconhecer a versão da comunidade, pois é a própria razão pela qual o Rocket.Chat existe.

Isso é realmente frustrante. Eu não gosto quando projetos de código aberto são influenciados por uma mentalidade de negócios orientada para o lucro.

Caso as coisas piorem, estou explorando um plano B e procurando um projeto de bate-papo de código aberto simples. Um simples com bate-papo apenas.

Também fico irritado por receber constantemente mensagens que me forçam a atualizar. Se algo está funcionando bem, por que devo ser obrigado a atualizá-lo a cada 2-3 meses?

mattermost work fine

[slhck]

I guess there still isn't any plan to become more transparent about the community version, given that it's not even listed in the plan overview, and that no real feature comparison exists. How am I supposed to know what features I am losing if I cancel my (Starter) subscription? After some digging I found this PDF, but it would be good to show this on the plans page, and not in a forum thread.

[fullheart]

The Blender Foundation organization is also leaving Rocket.Chat and moving to Element (Matrix). See announcement from August 9th, 2024: https://devtalk.blender.org/t/blender-chat-migration

[ThatOneCalculator]

Is it possible to switch back from community to starter? Cancelled, but didn't realize that would mess up push notifications :(