Comparison
No component or request capsNexus Repository Community Edition now stops writes above 100,000 components or 200,000 requests a day, and high availability, SSO and replication live in a Pro tier with no public price. OrbitalReg is a universal artifact repository for your own Kubernetes cluster with 40+ formats, no usage meters, and the security layer — CVE scanning, curated proxies, quarantine, signature-verified pulls — in the free version.
Side by side
Sonatype facts read from Sonatype's Community Edition announcement and support answers on 10 September 2026. Two rows are marked as gaps on purpose; the open-source one is the most important.
| Capability | Sonatype Nexus Repository | OrbitalReg |
|---|---|---|
| Component / request caps | Community Edition (3.77+): 100,000 components and 200,000 requests per day; writes blocked above the limit. Removed in Pro. | None — licences are per cluster, not metered |
| Package formats | Maven, npm, Docker, PyPI, NuGet, Helm, Cargo, Conda, apt, Yum, raw and more | 40+ — including Terraform, Nix, Ollama, Homebrew, OPA bundles |
| CVE scanning at upload | Separate paid products (Repository Firewall / Lifecycle) | Free — Trivy and Grype, results stay on your hardware |
| Curated proxies & quarantine | Repository Firewall (separate product) | Free — curated remotes, patch-version quarantine |
| Signature verification before pull | Not built in | Free — verify-on-pull gates: Sigstore, CMS, OpenPGP, RSA |
| Build promotion / provenance | Staging and tagging: Pro | Build-info provenance and promotion in every tier |
| Retention / cleanup | Cleanup policies; advanced options in Pro | Free — per-repo retention policies |
| Audit log | Available | Free — append-only, SIEM-ready |
| Database | H2 default; PostgreSQL from CE 3.77 | PostgreSQL always; CloudNativePG deployment documented |
| Air-gapped operation | Supported | Default — no outbound calls until you opt in |
| Infrastructure as code | Community Terraform providers | Terraform provider + Kubernetes operator + orbital CLI |
| High availability | Pro | Multi-node, multi-AZ, Postgres and Redis HA documented |
| SSO (SAML) | Pro | Commercial tier |
| Cross-site replication | Pro | Not offered — S3 mirroring for DR, no replication between instances |
| Open-source core | Yes — nexus-public on GitHub, a decade of community | Built on open-source components (Postgres, MinIO, Sigstore, Helm); OrbitalReg itself ships under its own EULA |
| Published self-hosted price | Community Edition free within limits · Pro: contact sales | Free forever · Commercial €10,000 in year one (3 cluster licences) |
Why teams switch
The Community Edition limits hit exactly the teams a registry is for: a busy CI fleet crosses 200,000 requests a day without noticing, and a container registry crosses 100,000 components in months. OrbitalReg licences a cluster; nodes, components and requests are yours. Free is free at any volume.
Nexus Repository stores; blocking malicious or vulnerable packages is a separate Sonatype product. OrbitalReg's free version scans every upload with Trivy and Grype, quarantines new patch versions on curated proxies, and refuses unsigned artifacts at the pull gate. See how that plays out against real attacks in the case studies.
Multi-node, multi-AZ and Postgres/Redis HA are documented for every tier. SAML SSO is in the Commercial tier at €10,000 in year one for three cluster licences, and the long-term tier locks the price for life — figures that are on the pricing section, not behind a sales call.
orbital migrate --source nexus
inventories both OSS/Community and Pro instances, pulls Maven, npm, Docker,
NuGet, RubyGems, PyPI, Helm, Conan and raw in parallel, translates repository
permissions to roles and verifies sha256 before cutover. Step by step in
Migrating from Sonatype Nexus.
Questions
For a self-hosted universal repository the realistic shortlist is JFrog Artifactory, OrbitalReg and, for container-only needs, Harbor. Artifactory is the incumbent and prices from $27,000 per year self-managed. OrbitalReg covers the same registry job with 40+ formats and puts the security layer — CVE scanning, curated proxies, quarantine, signature-verified pulls — in its free version, with no component or request caps. If self-hosting is optional, Cloudsmith, GitHub Packages and the cloud providers' registries are managed alternatives.
From version 3.77 the Community Edition enforces two thresholds: 100,000 components in total and 200,000 requests per day. After a 30-day grace period an instance above either limit is restricted — new components cannot be written until usage falls below both — and the limits are removed by purchasing Pro. Older OSS releases (3.76 and earlier) treat the same numbers as recommendations only. OrbitalReg does not meter components or requests in any tier.
For the registry job, yes. OrbitalReg speaks each format's native protocol, so pom.xml, .npmrc, pip.conf and the Docker daemon keep working once they point at the new host; Nexus group repositories map to OrbitalReg virtual repositories and repository-level permissions migrate to roles. The orbital migrate CLI imports format by format — Maven, npm, Docker, NuGet, RubyGems, PyPI, Helm, Conan, raw — from both OSS/Community and Pro instances.
An open-source core with more than a decade of community history — nexus-public is on GitHub, while OrbitalReg ships under its own EULA with a free tier. Cross-site replication in Pro, where OrbitalReg only mirrors to S3 for disaster recovery. And Sonatype's own vulnerability intelligence through its paid Repository Firewall and Lifecycle products, where OrbitalReg relies on the open-source Trivy and Grype engines. If you use those products, compare findings on one of your SBOMs before switching.
Run orbital migrate plan against the Nexus endpoint with a token; it inventories repositories and components, classifies the size and recommends big-bang, blue-green or lazy-proxy. orbital migrate apply pulls formats in parallel and translates permissions, orbital migrate verify checks sha256 on a sample set, and you flip the URL when it reports the cutover is safe. Registries under a terabyte usually fit a single maintenance window.
Also compare: JFrog Artifactory alternative · Artifactory pricing · migration strategies · format support matrix
Free forever · no caps
One Helm chart. Put a lazy proxy in front of your Nexus, let
orbital migrate plan
size the cutover, and watch the pull gate work on your own traffic.
