Register your deployment

Registration is how an existing Community Edition deployment gets its free perpetual key under the Community Grant Program. It runs from inside the platform you are already running, and it has to happen before you upgrade: the key is what licenses ThingsBoard 4.4, so without it there is nothing to upgrade into.

Your deployment must be on the latest 4.3 LTS patch. Earlier versions cannot produce the report the registration flow needs. Follow the Community Edition upgrade instructions if you are not there yet.

1. Open Community Grant registration.

   Sign in to ThingsBoard as a system administrator. On the Home page, click Get your Community Grant on the version card.

2. Review the grant and register the deployment.

   In the Community Grant registration dialog, review the grant details. Nothing on your deployment changes at this point. Click Register this deployment.

3. Sign in to the License Portal.

   The License Portal opens in a new tab. Sign in with Google or with your email and password. If you don’t have an account yet, click New here? Create your account. The grant is issued to this account.

4. Accept the grant terms.

   Select the checkbox to confirm that you are authorized to register this deployment for your organization, that it was running in production before the announcement date, and that you agree to the Community Grant License Agreement. Click Accept and continue. Nothing is issued until you accept.

5. Wait for verification.

   The Portal verifies your deployment with a read-only check that produces one small encrypted report: entity counts, creation timestamps, table sizes, and your deployment’s identifiers. It never includes telemetry values, device names, or dashboard contents, and your database is never uploaded.

   The check runs on the deployment itself, so on a large database it can take a few minutes. The page updates on its own, whether you wait there or come back later.

6. Collect your license key.

   Most deployments are verified automatically and the perpetual grant key is issued straight away. Larger ones may need a short review. If the grant is ready, the Portal shows Your Community Grant is ready, with the granted scale (devices, production servers, and edges) and your License key. Use Show to reveal the key or Copy to copy it. A copy is also emailed to your account address.

   The key stays in your Portal account. Click View your licenses to return to it later or to register another deployment.

7. Confirm the registration in ThingsBoard.

   Back in ThingsBoard, the Community Grant registration dialog updates to This deployment is registered. Click See what was granted to open the grant in the License Portal, or Close.

   If you closed the dialog before registration finished, the version card on the Home page shows Registering this deployment. Click Continue to reopen it.

Your grant is calculated once, from the deployment you were running — your device count plus headroom, your production servers, and any branding you had already changed. It is perpetual, it does not expire, and there is no maintenance fee on it.

With the key issued, you can upgrade whenever you are ready. Follow the upgrade from Community Edition guide and enter your license key when it asks for it. Your granted scale applies from that moment, so nothing you already run hits a limit.