The SolarWinds EULA, subscription and support terms are the contract documents that sit above every SolarWinds product metric. On-premises software is licensed under the SolarWinds End User License Agreement (EULA), last updated on 5 September 2025, between the customer and SolarWinds Worldwide, LLC; the Agreement consists of the EULA, any applicable Product-Specific Terms and the Order.[1] The EULA is completed by the Support and Maintenance Terms and Conditions, the Order and the product or commercial addenda posted on the SolarWinds legal documents page, and together they supersede the terms of any customer purchase order.[1][2] SaaS offerings use a separate Software as a Service Agreement, last updated on 10 September 2026.[3] This article describes those documents as a licence manager needs them; product metrics are covered in the related articles.
Editions
The contract set is not divided into editions, but into document families listed on the SolarWinds legal documents page:[2]
| Family | Documents | Applies to |
|---|---|---|
| On-premises | End User License Agreement; On-Premises Product Specific Terms; Commercial Specific Terms; SaaS Supplement; End of Life Policy | Self-hosted software |
| Software Services | Software Services Agreement (and a separate agreement for Incident Response); SaaS Specific Terms; End of Life Policy for SaaS Products | SaaS subscriptions |
| Support | Support and Maintenance Terms and Conditions; Deployment Addendum and Deployment Scope Document; Commercial Premium Support and Federal Premium Support addenda | Support and services orders |
| Data processing | Customer and Vendor Data Processing Addenda; Data Transfer Addendum; sub-processor lists | Personal data |
Superseded versions are kept on an archive page. It lists, for example, EULA versions replaced on 15 March 2022, 17 October 2022, 5 July 2024, 20 June 2025 and 5 September 2025, a removed EULA Addendum for Network Operations Manager, Application Centric Manager and Network Automation Manager, and an earlier On-Premises Product Specific Terms replaced on 9 December 2025.[4] Products licensed under a prior Product Addendum in an older agreement stay subject to that addendum, so the archive matters when reading an older entitlement (rule).[1]
Metrics
The EULA defines no commercial metric of its own beyond the licence key. Its default unit is the Device: a physical or virtual server, system, workstation, computer, mobile device or end point on or through which the software is used or installed.[1] A User is an individual authorised by the customer for whom a licence was bought or who has been given credentials, limited to employees, consultants and contractors of the customer and its Affiliates and, for MSPs, their Clients.[1] All product-specific metrics (nodes, elements, sockets, instances, technicians) come from the documentation that the EULA incorporates: the grant is subject to continuous compliance with “this Agreement and the Documentation”.[1]
Counting / floors
Grant and per-Device rule
The licence is limited, worldwide, nonexclusive and nontransferable, runs for the License Term in the Order, and is solely for the customer’s internal business purposes or, for an MSP, solely on behalf of its Clients; Affiliates may use it under the customer’s responsibility (rule).[1] For each licence key the software may be used on any single Device unless the documentation clearly indicates otherwise, and may be copied for backup and archival purposes (rule).[1] Several product documents do indicate otherwise, notably flexible licensing for Observability Self-Hosted, centralized Dameware keys and floating DPA licences.[5][6][7]
Restrictions
Section 3.1.1 prohibits use by anyone other than Users; reverse engineering except where the law allows it (with 90 days’ notice to SolarWinds before any permitted reverse engineering); licensing, selling, renting, leasing, transferring, sublicensing or assigning the software; licensing it as a direct competitor or for benchmarking; and use that results in excessive use or circumvention of its technical limitations or usage limits. Any forbidden use terminates the licence immediately (rule).[1] The EULA can be assigned without consent only on a merger, acquisition or sale of substantially all assets, or to an Affiliate, and each party must give timely written notice of an assignment (rule).[1]
Evaluation and redundant licences
Evaluation, beta, release-candidate and No-Fee Licenses, which include free tools and support tools, are limited to internal evaluation (or MSP demonstrations) during the evaluation period and are provided as is without support, warranty or indemnity (rule).[1] A redundant copy obtained solely for high availability or disaster recovery may run actively only while it is not running on a primary production Device, except when the primary fails, is being upgraded or replaced, or during other temporary disruption; it may not monitor items the primary does not monitor (rule).[1] This is separate from the SolarWinds Platform High Availability feature, which is licensed per HA pool.[8]
Term, renewal and early termination
The License Term begins on delivery of the software and runs for the period in the Order. Unless the Order says otherwise, the customer authorises SolarWinds to renew automatically at the rates SolarWinds provides, for a Renewal Term of the same length unless SolarWinds specifies otherwise; auto-renewal can be prevented only by 90 days’ prior written notice (rule).[1] Fees are due net 30 days from invoice unless the Order states otherwise, payment obligations are non-cancellable and Fees are non-refundable.[1] On termination or expiration the customer must uninstall the software and stop using it, and Fees through the end of the current Term remain payable (rule).[1]
The Subscription Commercial Specific Terms add an exit right for committed Subscription Term Licenses that are paid annually. The customer may terminate with at least 90 days’ written notice before the end of the current annual period; the termination only applies to later years, the current year stays payable, and 20% of the balance of Fees for the rest of the committed term is still due. Prepaid multi-year terms remain payable in full with no refund (rule).[9]
Perpetual licences and conversion
SolarWinds formerly sold perpetual licences with annual maintenance. The stand-alone License Manager documentation still states the maintenance rule: licences can be reused to install versions released during the maintenance period, but not versions released after maintenance expired (rule).[10] Customers converting legacy perpetual products to subscription do so under the On-Premises Product Specific Terms, updated on 19 December 2025 to apply to all legacy perpetual licence conversions.[11] The subscription licences replace the legacy products, the Prior Licenses are terminated, converted and superseded, and the customer must deactivate and uninstall them within a commercially reasonable time after activating the new keys (rule, program).[12]
Audit
Section 13.12 requires the customer to keep and provide on request all information and records needed to demonstrate compliance, and to provide an affidavit declaring its usage and installation on written request. SolarWinds may, on reasonable written notice, inspect and audit relevant facilities and records during regular business hours, solely to confirm compliance for use and installation of the licensed software, without interfering with normal business. If the licensed software is in excess of the purchased software, SolarWinds invoices the underpayment; the customer may instead authorise electronic access to audit its use (rule).[1] Commentary: the clause sets no frequency limit, no cost-shifting threshold and no list-price uplift; the underpayment is simply invoiced. The usage data SolarWinds receives through the SolarWinds Improvement Program, which Premier overages require, is a second channel through which consumption becomes visible to the vendor.[13]
Support and lifecycle
Support is delivered under the Support and Maintenance Terms and Conditions, last updated on 5 June 2026; the legal changelog records that revision as reflecting “subscription model go to market updates”.[14][11] Support runs for the Support Term shown on the invoice from the day the software is delivered, and is provided only if the software was obtained from SolarWinds or its authorised partners (program).[14] It includes 24x7 online and telephone support and, for on-premises software, new Releases, defined as any change of major, minor or patch version number.[14] Unless SolarWinds agrees otherwise, support covers only the most current generally available Release (rule).[14] Support is given only to designated Contacts, at least one of whom must be an administrator, and a Contact may not act as a forwarding service for other staff.[14]
SolarWinds may retire software or support at any time, and has no obligation to provide or renew support for software that has reached End of Life.[14] The End of Life Policy defines the stages: an EOL announcement at least 30 days before End of Sale, an End of Engineering date after which no new fixes are created, and an End of Life date, typically one year after End of Sale, when all technical support ends (rule).[15] For most self-hosted software with a date-based licence model the End of Sale date is generally not applicable, because new licences work with previous product versions (rule).[15]
Deployment Services are sold in three fixed-fee packages of up to 30, 75 and 125 hours per product, only for licences under an active maintenance plan, and expire 60 days after the effective date without carry-over or refund (rule).[16] The deployment scope document lists the products the packages cover, from Observability Self-Hosted and the individual Platform modules to DPA, SQL Sentry, Web Help Desk and SolarWinds Service Desk.[17]
Virtualization & partitioning
The EULA treats physical and virtual machines alike: both are Devices.[1] It contains no partitioning or cluster rule; how virtual infrastructure is counted is set by each product’s metric (see SolarWinds Platform module licensing).
Cloud / BYOL
The Software as a Service Agreement governs SaaS offerings. Its Term renews automatically unless the Order says otherwise, with the same 90-day notice to prevent renewal.[3] Customers may expand services in-product (treated as an Order), some services allow usage above licensed parameters with overages paid in arrears, and exceeding the licence or use capacity in the Order Form, including use of AI Tools, results in additional fees on a later invoice (rule).[3] Customers who moved existing SaaS subscriptions into SolarWinds Observability SaaS accepted that their Existing Subscriptions were converted and that SolarWinds may later enforce entitlements to reflect only their active subscriptions (rule).[18] When a self-hosted product enables SaaS functionality, the customer must accept the SaaS Supplement before using it (rule).[12][19]
Programs
- Legacy perpetual product conversion.[12]
- SolarWinds Support and Maintenance.[14]
- SolarWinds Deployment Services (Levels 1 to 3).[16]
Out of scope
Data processing addenda, privacy terms and the separate Incident Response agreement are not described. Warranty, indemnity and liability clauses are outside the scope of this licensing article. Partner-specific terms and any negotiated enterprise agreements, which override the posted terms only where the Order says so, are not public.