You are welcome to submit any questions, participate in discussions and request
help with any issue in [openBalena forums][forums]. The balena team frequents
these forums and will be happy to help. You can also ask other community members
for help, or contribute by answering questions posted by fellow openBalena users.
Please do not use the issue tracker for support-related questions.
## Contributing
Everyone is welcome to contribute to openBalena. There are many different ways
to get involved apart from submitting pull requests, including helping other
users on the [forums][forums], reporting or triaging [issues][issue-tracker],
reviewing and discussing [pull requests][pulls], or just spreading the word.
All of openBalena is hosted on GitHub. Apart from its constituent components,
which are the [API][open-balena-api], [VPN][open-balena-vpn], [Registry][open-balena-registry],
[S3 storage service][open-balena-s3], and [Database][open-balena-db], contributions
are also welcome to its client-side software such as the [balena CLI][balena-cli],
the [balena SDK][balena-sdk], [balenaOS][balena-os] and [balenaEngine][balena-engine].
## Roadmap
OpenBalena is currently in beta. While fully functional, it lacks features we
consider important before we can comfortably call it production-ready. During
this phase, don’t be alarmed if things don’t work as expected just yet (and
please let us know about any bugs or errors you encounter!). The following
improvements and new functionality is planned:
- Full documentation
- Full test suite
- Simplified deployment
- Remote host OS updates
- Support for custom device types
## Differences between openBalena and balenaCloud
| openBalena | balenaCloud |
| ----- | ---- |
| Device updates using full images | Device updates using [delta images](https://www.balena.io/docs/learn/deploy/delta/) |
| Support for a single user | Support for [multiple users](https://www.balena.io/docs/learn/manage/account/#application-members) |
| Self-hosted deployment and scaling | balena-managed scaling and deployment |
| Community support via [forums][forums] | Private support on [paid plans](https://www.balena.io/pricing/) |
| Deploy via `balena deploy` only | Build remotely with native builders using [`balena push`](https://www.balena.io/docs/learn/deploy/deployment/#balena-push) or [`git push`](https://www.balena.io/docs/learn/deploy/deployment/#git-push) |
| No support for building via `git push` | Use the same CI workflow with [`git push`](https://www.balena.io/docs/learn/deploy/deployment/#git-push) |
| No public URL support | Serve websites directly from device with [public device URLs](https://www.balena.io/docs/learn/manage/actions/#enable-public-device-url) |
| Management via `balena-cli` only | Cloud-based device management dashboard |
| Download images from [balena.io][balena-os-website] | Download preconfigured images directly from the dashboard |
| No supported remote diagnostics | Remote device diagnostics |
| Supported devices: Raspberry Pi family, the Intel NUC, the NVIDIA Jetson TX2, and the balenaFin | All the devices listed in balena's [reference documentation](https://www.balena.io/docs/reference/hardware/devices/) |
Additionally, refer back to the [roadmap](#roadmap) above for planned but not yet implemented features.
## License
OpenBalena is licensed under the terms of AGPL v3. See [LICENSE](LICENSE) for details.
