Nutanix Community Edition is the free and lighter-weight version of the Nutanix Acropolis (previously know as Nutanix Operating System), which powers the Nutanix Virtual Platform. The Community Edition (CE) is designed for people interested in test driving its main features on their own hardware and infrastructure, but also learn more on Nutanix.

Why Nutanix CE is important? Because comprared to other products, it’s not so easy get the official software and test on a lab, if you aren’t already a customer or a partner. Nutanix CE is one of the way to test the software!

First release was in late 2015 with several limitations (like single node only) and now we are at the new Nutanix CE 2.1 with a lot of improvements!

This release includes a huge number of new features that were delivered since the last version of CE, including releases from AOS 6.6, AOS 6.7, AOS 6.8 and now AOS 6.8.1 (maintenance release).

Nutanix CE 2.1 has a number of improvements including installer fixes, making deployments easier, and improving the user experience. This Community Edition update will provide thousands of users access to the latest set of capabilities in their home or work lab.

A big news is also the ability to test Prism Central! Nutanix CE provides access to our single-pane-of-glass Prism Central management interface, which provides significant benefits to users. First, the latest Prism Central presents a great opportunity to build automation with the new v4 APIs. 

But Prism Central require a lot of resources, if you have a small lab? The solution is X-Small Prism Central: a single-node Prism Central VM that is intended for small-scale deployments with limited workload, ideal for CE deployments.

Nutanix CE has a long history of empowering IT professionals, enthusiasts, and developers. Thousands of users rely on CE to build home labs, develop new solutions, integrate their company’s products with Nutanix Cloud Platform, and gain hands-on experience with enterprise-grade technology.