Vertica Community Edition (CE)

The Vertica Community Edition (CE) is a free, limited license that Vertica provides users so that they can get a hands-on introduction to the platform. It allows you to deploy up to three nodes using a maximum of 1TB of data.

As part of the CE license, you agree to the collection of some anonymous, non-identifying usage data. This data lets Vertica understand how customers use the product, and helps guide the development of new features. None of your personal data is collected. For details on what is collected, see the Community Edition End User License Agreement.

Vertica provides two options to use the Community Edition:

  • CE container image. Container images require a container engine such as Docker Desktop. For installation details, see the official Docker documentation.

  • Vertica Community Edition Virtual Machine (Vertica CE VM), which is available for download on the Vertica website.

CE Container Image

The CE image is a single-node, lightweight alternative to the Vertica CE VM. Vertica provides two options to get the CE container image:

The CE container environment includes the following:

  • VMart example database
  • admintools
  • vsql
  • Developer libraries

Use the Vertica CE container image with the following limitations:

  • There is a two-day verification period before CE licenses are issued.
  • CE images expire after 1 year.

For more information about Vertica licensing, see Managing Licenses.

Vertica CE VM

The Vertica CE VM is a preconfigured Linux environment that includes:

  • Vertica Community Edition with the VMart example database
  • Management Console
  • admintools
  • vsql
  • A tutorial that guides you through a series of common tasks

The Vertica CE VM is not supported for production use.

For a preview of the tutorial included in the Vertica CE VM, see the Vertica CE VM User Guide.

To download and install the Vertica CE VM, follow the instructions in the Vertica CE VM Installation Guide.