NOTE: Prices stated valid on January 2026, and are shown for guidance only. Please contact our Sales Team for updated values and further details.
I am a developer, can I buy a self-hosted version of ARES Kudo to install on my server?
Two different business models are offered to developers for our cloud-based development platform ARES Kudo:
ARES Kudo OEM - Is charged with a cost per user.
This business model is a good fit if your solution meets 2 conditions:
a) You charge your solution as a monthly or yearly subscription
AND
b) You have at least 100 subscribers, because the cost is 2500€/$ per year, plus 150€/$ per user with a minimum of 15000€/$ per year
👉 ARES Kudo OEM can be installed on your server. The cost doesn't include hosting.
ARES Kudo Server - Is charged with a cost per server and the cost includes the server infrastructure that Graebert is providing from AWS.
This business model is a good fit for developers that meet any of the following two cases:
a) Your business model is not a cost per user, so paying a fixed cost per end user doesn't fit your use case. For example, if your solution is free for your customers or if you charge a cost per file, per project, maybe each of your users is only using one or two times per year and you don't want to pay a license for each of them.
OR
b) If you are not sure to have at least 100 subscribers, you may not meet the minimum for ARES Kudo OEM. In this case, you may start with ARES Kudo Server and sign an ARES Kudo OEM contract later.
👉 ARES Kudo Server is not hosted on your server but is should not make any difference (read after).
Is there a self-hosted version of ARES Kudo Server that I could install on my server?
What we deliver for the ARES Kudo Server is a dedicated AWS S3 instance that we will rent for you on AWS. You can choose the region, to be close to your users. But the files and data can stay on another server; our features are only used to view and edit the data. It implies that:
1. The cost of the server is included in our price
2. There is no difference in performance with a self-hosted solution
3. There is no difference in terms of security because your solution is completely isolated, and you keep control on where the files are hosted
4. And it is also the same in terms of development. You can still embed ARES Kudo inside an iframe in your solution or alternatively buid the features on top of the ARES Kudo UI by modifying our CSS.
5. There is no need for Dev ops to maintain the service that ARES Kudo Server is providing. Our team and infrastructure will continue to update and maintain the server.
The latter is particularly important. At first, when customers ask for a self-hosted solution they don't realize that maintaining the servers implies to recruit dedicated experts. We have already dedicated staff and a resilient infrastructure. You can check on https://status.graebert.com and see how our servers have an uptime that is higher than 99.9% and if you check any of the incidents, you can see how resilient the infrastructure is to recover promptly.
For development purposes, we provide the ARES Kudo Developer Studio, which you can use for free to develop and test your features locally. When you are ready to deploy on a server, the next step is to buy one or more ARES Kudo Servers to dimension the infrastructure to your needs.
ARES Kudo Server is offered in 3 sizes. Each of the following plans are all inclusive (hosting is included), and you can rent multiple servers if you want multiple regions or need to increase the capacity:
ARES Kudo Server Small
Capacity for 20 concurrent sessions (ie server is big enough to enable 20 users working with one file simultaneously, but the users can change anytime)
4 server cores
Cost: 450€ or 480$ per month (buy from estore) /OR/ 4500€ or 4800$ per year (buy from estore)
ARES Kudo Server Medium
Capacity for 40 concurrent sessions
8 server cores
Cost: 750€ or 800$ per month (buy from estore) /OR/ 7500€ or 8000$ per year (buy from estore)
ARES Kudo Server Large
Capacity for 100 concurrent sessions
16 server cores
Cost: 1500€ or 1600$ per month (buy from estore) /OR/ 15000€ or 16000$ per year (buy from estore)
Example: If you have 200 potential users but never more than 30 working simultaneously at peak, then it is enough to rent one ARES Kudo Server Medium. In turn, if 100 of these users are in Japan and 100 in the USA, it could be smart to buy two servers (either small or medium) to keep one in each region.
There are only 2 remaining cases where a self-hosted plan makes sense:
If you need to install ARES Kudo Server in an Intranet ie a server that has no Internet access. For example: A facility management solution with all the drawings of the building, but it can only be accessed from the computers inside the building.
For specific security reasons, when it is mandatory to use a local IT infrastructure, no matter if it is more expensive or more complex. For example: A nuclear plant or a company working in the defense sector cannot use an AWS server.
In these rare exceptions we have the ARES Kudo Server Private plan:
Price does not include hosting
Same price regardless of server size, since you can install on any server.
The specs of your server will vary, so it is your responsibility to dimension and maintain the infrastructure
Cost is 18000€ or 19200$ per year per server. The monthly plan is not offered because we need to manually activate your server each year
As you can see, the difference in price is high, even more if you consider the fact that hosting costs are not included in the Private plan. It reflects the additional complexity for our team.
Note also that the ARES Kudo Server business model is a per-server cost model. It is best suited for developers considering small- to medium-sized deployments or business models that are not based on a per-user price. If your solution is charged as a yearly or monthly subscription, and you are sure to have at least 100 paid subscribers, we can recommend as an alternative our ARES Kudo OEM business model with a cost per user (150€ per year per named user, with a minimum of 15000€ per year), in addition to a flat yearly maintenance of 2500€.
Learn more about the ARES Kudo Online CAD Development Platform for Developers:
More videos in our YouTube playlist for developers:
How to test my code with ARES Kudo?
Contact us to get free access to our SDK and an NFR license of ARES Kudo Developer Studio, which is a local version of ARES Kudo that you can install on your computer to test your code before considering a purchase of ARES Kudo Server to deploy your solution (or an ARES Kudo OEM contract).