HCL Domino CCB licensing cost vs self-hosted open-source mail: where the money goes
Self-hosting mail tends to cost less per user when the platform itself carries no per-user fee, and more when the work of building, hardening and running it lands on your own staff or a partner. The licence line is only one part of the comparison. Among the open-source options, grommunio publishes per-user pricing: a free Community package for up to 5 users without manufacturer support, Basic at 1.99 euros and Plus at 3.99 euros per user per month from 6 users, Business at 5.49 euros from 50 users, and custom Enterprise pricing from 1,000 users, with licences sold only through certified partners. The AGPL-3.0 code in Gromox and the OX App Suite mirrors carries no per-user licence fee, but the Open-Xchange Operations Guide states that certain modules or features may be subject to custom packaging, limitations or separate fees set in the licence agreement. Read that clause before you compare totals.
Domino cost depends on how entitlements are counted, not on how many people work at the company. Under Client Access Licence (CCB) terms, administrator IDs, test IDs and other non-user identities can consume entitlements, so a headcount estimate can understate or overstate your position. Before any renewal discussion, export the Domino Directory and list every person and non-person ID, the servers they touch and the mail-only users who might fit a lower-cost entitlement such as Messaging Express. Ask your HCL account team to confirm in writing how each ID category is counted, which term or Subscription and Support terms apply, and what the renewal price is for the entitlement you actually need. Ask the same questions of each open-source vendor about support tiers, module packaging and minimum commitments, then build a three-year view that separates one-time migration and server build from recurring licences, support and staff time.
Which cost components change when you move off Domino mail
This table compares each cost component of running Domino mail with the matching component of a self-hosted OX App Suite or grommunio deployment. Read each row for who is paid, whether the cost is one-time or recurring, and what drives it up. The main takeaway is that Domino per-user entitlements and the self-hosted platform's license fees are only part of the total, and the hosting, migration and internal skills rows often decide the result.
| Cost component | Commercial Domino side | Self-hosted OX App Suite or grommunio side |
|---|---|---|
| Software entitlement (CCB) | Recurring. Per-user entitlements that may count administrator and test IDs, so confirm with HCL how each ID is classified in your environment. | Not applicable for OX App Suite or grommunio core components. Confirm module-level terms in the OX license agreement, since some modules may carry separate fees. |
| Subscription and Support or term license | Recurring. Perpetual licenses carry annual Subscription and Support fees, while term licenses renew on a fixed cycle. Ask HCL which model applies and what renewal includes. | grommunio Community is free for up to 5 users without manufacturer support. Paid Basic, Plus and Business tiers are per user per month or per tier, sold through certified partners. |
| Messaging Express for mail-only users | Recurring. Confirm whether mail-only users can be licensed under this option and whether it still applies at your user count. | Mail-only users are included in the per-user or per-tier cost of the chosen platform. Confirm whether user counts for Plus, Business or Enterprise terms match your directory. |
| Server and storage | Recurring hardware or cloud compute, backup and storage growth for mailboxes and attachments. Driven by Domino server count and replication topology. | OX App Suite needs a distributed file system for persistent data: NFS for small to mid-size, or object storage such as S3, Ceph RadosGW or Scality RING for larger. grommunio stores mailboxes in SQLite per user. |
| Kubernetes or appliance hosting | Not applicable. Domino runs on its own servers with no container platform required. | OX App Suite v8 runs on Kubernetes with Helm 3.17.0 or newer and requires Istio or a basic ingress-nginx option. grommunio ships as an openSUSE appliance (ISO or OVA) or manual and container installs. |
| Implementation and integration | One-time or periodic. Covers any internal or partner work on Notes mail templates, Directory and client rollout. | One-time. Covers installation, LDAP or Active Directory integration, SSO, client setup and hardening. Ask for the scope in writing before work starts. |
| Data migration | One-time. Extraction of Notes mailboxes, calendars and contacts, plus remediation of items that do not map cleanly. | One-time. For Exchange sources, grommunio's exchange2grommunio.ps1 script exports PST and imports over SSH and can resume after failures. Notes sources need a separate extraction plan. |
| Support contracts | Recurring. Vendor support is typically bundled with Subscription and Support. Confirm response terms in writing. | Recurring if you buy manufacturer or partner support. Standard OX releases are supported for 12 weeks, and LTS releases run until the next LTS plus six months, so plan for upgrades. |
| Upgrades and internal skills | Recurring staff time for Domino administration, patching and Notes client updates. | Recurring staff time for Kubernetes, MariaDB, Redis and storage operations, or appliance updates. Staff skills and retainer scope are the main levers on this cost. |
What moves the comparison most
Most of the cost difference between HCL Domino and a self-hosted open-source mail platform comes from a small set of inputs. Read the cards in order: the first three decide the license side, and the last three decide the cost of running the replacement.
User count and mail-only users
Start by splitting your population into users who need Notes applications and users who only need mail and calendar. CCB entitlements are counted per user, so every mail-only person you can move off the application stack changes the license base. Ask your HCL reseller how Messaging Express is priced against full CCB for the mail-only group, and get the split in writing before you compare numbers with OX App Suite or grommunio.
Admin and test IDs in the count
Ask whether the CCB count you are quoted includes administrator IDs, test IDs and service accounts. Many Domino estates carry more of these than people expect, and each one can add to the entitlement base. Build an inventory of every ID that authenticates to the environment, then confirm with HCL which of them are billable before you accept a renewal figure.
Mailbox and attachment volume
Total mailbox size, attachment volume and retention rules drive storage cost on both sides. On the open-source side, OX App Suite v8 expects persistent data such as attachments to sit on NFS for small to mid-size deployments or on object storage such as AWS S3, Ceph RadosGW or Scality RING for larger ones. Measure current Domino mail storage per user, then size the target store against growth and retention, not against today's average.
Edition and support tier choice
The open-source line items depend on the edition you run. grommunio lists a free Community package for up to 5 users without manufacturer support, with paid tiers from 6 users and custom Enterprise pricing from 1,000 users, sold through certified partners. OX App Suite support follows a release commitment, and an LTS release is supported until the next LTS plus six months. Decide which support level your risk tolerance requires, then price it as a recurring line.
Availability and high availability needs
Define the uptime and recovery expectations for mail before you size anything. A single-server grommunio appliance and a multi-node OX App Suite cluster on Kubernetes carry very different hardware, storage replication and operations costs. Clarify whether you need active-active service, cross-site failover or only tested restores, and ask each vendor or partner to show the topology they would deploy for that requirement.
Internal Kubernetes and Linux skills
OX App Suite v8 is delivered as Helm charts and requires Helm 3.17.0 or newer, with Istio or a basic ingress-nginx option, and grommunio is built on openSUSE. Count the operators you already have who can run Kubernetes, Linux, MariaDB and mail flow in production. Any gap is a recurring cost, either through a support partner or through hiring, and it belongs in the comparison alongside license fees.
How to build the comparison with your own numbers
This sequence turns your Domino renewal into a like-for-like model, with one row per cost component on each side and a multi-year total you can take into vendor quote requests.
Export your current Domino entitlement report
The Domino administrator, working with whoever manages the HCL software agreement, pulls the current entitlement and usage data for every server and user population covered by CCB or Messaging Express. Save it as a dated file so the baseline does not drift while you work. Check that the report covers all Domino servers in scope, not only the mail servers. You are finished when you can name each licensed population, its count and the license type that applies to it, and the file is stored with the renewal records.
Separate mail-only users from application users
Split the directory into people who only use Notes mail and calendar and people who depend on Domino applications, workflows or databases. Mail-only users are the population an open-source mail platform would replace directly, so they drive the mail comparison. Application users stay on Domino in most migration paths, which means their licenses may not leave with the mail workload. Ask the HCL account team to confirm in writing which entitlements change if mail-only users move. You are finished when every active user sits in exactly one group and the counts add up to the directory total.
List every ID that counts toward entitlement
Under CCB and per-user terms, administrator IDs, test IDs, service and shared IDs and archived IDs may be counted in the entitlement even though no person reads mail with them. Build a list of each such ID from the Domino Directory and the server documents, then mark which ones are still needed after a move. Confirm with HCL how each ID type is counted under your agreement, because the rules depend on the contract. You are finished when the list has a yes or no for each ID type, with the contract clause that supports the answer.
Price the open-source side from published tiers
For OX App Suite, request a written quote from Open-Xchange or a service provider that covers the per-user terms, support level and any modules you need, since the Operations Guide notes that some modules may carry custom packaging or separate fees. For grommunio, the pricing page lists a free Community package for up to 5 users without manufacturer support, Basic at 1.99 euros and Plus at 3.99 euros per user per month from 6 users, Business at 5.49 euros from 50 users, and custom Enterprise pricing from 1,000 users, with licenses sold only through certified partners. Put each tier in a spreadsheet against your user counts, and mark which rows are subscriptions that recur. You are finished when both open-source columns show a monthly and annual figure per user band, with the source named.
Size servers and storage from mailbox totals
Add up mailbox sizes, attachment volume and archive stores from the Domino mail files and your storage reports, then add a growth rate your business has observed. For OX App Suite v8, persistent data such as Drive files and PIM attachments needs a distributed file system, NFS for small to mid-size deployments or object storage such as S3, Ceph RadosGW or Scality RING for larger ones, and the platform runs on Kubernetes with Istio or ingress-nginx and MariaDB. For grommunio, the appliance runs on openSUSE and mailboxes sit in SQLite files, so size disks and backup capacity against the same totals. Ask your infrastructure team for the hardware and hosting cost of each option. You are finished when the sizing sheet lists compute, storage, database and backup capacity for each option, with the mailbox total it was built from.
Add one-time migration and recurring support lines
Separate the costs that happen once from those that repeat each year. One-time items include migration planning, mailbox extraction, directory changes, testing, cutover and training, and the work to keep Notes applications running during coexistence. Recurring items include subscriptions, support contracts, hosting, backup, upgrades and staff time for administration. Ask any implementation partner, DeployOpen included, for a fixed-scope written quote that names deliverables, so the one-time line is not an estimate. You are finished when each line is tagged one-time or recurring, has an owner and a source document, and no line is left as a blank placeholder.
Request written quotes from both sides
Send the same scope and user counts to HCL for a renewal quote covering the entitlements you confirmed, and to each open-source vendor or partner you are considering. Ask each party to state the license basis, the counting rules for IDs, the support tier, any optional modules and any term or renewal conditions in writing. Compare quotes line by line against your model rather than against the headline price. You are finished when every row in the model is backed by a written quote or is marked as an open question with a named owner.
Model the total over several years
Build a multi-year view, often three to five years, that shows the Domino renewal cost each year next to the open-source subscription, hosting, support and staff costs, with the one-time migration cost placed in the first year. Run it at your current user count and at a growth scenario you can justify, and mark the year when the cumulative costs cross if they do. Review it with finance and the security or compliance owners before any decision, since the model excludes effects you have not measured. You are finished when the model shows cumulative cost by year for both paths and a short list of assumptions that the decision owner has signed off.
How migration effort shapes the first-year cost
The largest one-time cost in a Domino exit is rarely the licence swap. It is the mail path. The documented grommunio route for Exchange works by exporting each mailbox to PST with New-MailboxExportRequest, then running gromox-pff2mt piped into gromox-mt2exm on the grommunio server, with the exchange2grommunio.ps1 script logging successes and failures so runs can resume. That path depends on an Exchange source, a shared folder and an Active Directory or LDAP directory shared with grommunio. Notes mail does not pass through any of those steps. Extracting Notes mailboxes for OX App Suite is a different job, built around IMAP access and standard calendar formats, so a grommunio estimate should not be reused as an OX estimate or the reverse.
Coexistence, directory changes and cutover order usually cost more than the data copy itself. Free/busy lookups across two systems, the point at which Domino Directory stops being the source of identity, and the sequence in which users, shared mail and calendars move all need planning and testing before any production date is set. These are the items most likely to be underestimated in a first-year budget. The sibling topics on migrating from HCL Domino mail to OX App Suite and migrating to grommunio cover these steps in detail, so use them as the working plan rather than this summary.
Ask any integrator for a fixed-scope quote that lists each migration stage separately: discovery of mail and calendar volumes, test migrations, coexistence design, cutover and post-cutover support. Confirm which Notes applications stay on Domino, since their retention affects how long Domino licences and servers must be kept running in parallel. Treat the migration as a one-time line item that recurs only if coexistence is extended, and check whether the one-time effort is priced separately from ongoing support.
Questions buyers ask before comparing costs
Can we do the HCL Domino cost comparison in-house?
Yes, many teams can build the comparison themselves, provided someone has the licensing records and the directory data. Start by counting every user, shared mailbox, resource calendar, and administrator or test ID that CCB counts, because those entitlements drive most of the Domino figure. Then list server, storage, backup and staff costs for both sides. Ask HCL or your reseller to confirm how CCB and Messaging Express apply to your mail-only users, since the terms are set in your agreement. If the numbers are still uncertain after that, an outside review can check the model against the written scope.
How long does a Domino licensing audit take, and what does it need from IT?
The duration depends on how quickly your team can produce accurate data, so ask your vendor or partner for a written timeline before work starts. IT typically needs the Domino Directory export, a list of server IDs and their roles, current entitlement records, and confirmation of which accounts are human users, service IDs, admin IDs or test IDs. Expect to spend time reconciling accounts that were created for projects and never removed. Clean inventory data shortens the audit and makes the per-user count defensible.
What skills does a self-hosted OX App Suite deployment need?
Plan for a team that can run Kubernetes, MariaDB, Redis, a distributed file system and an Istio service mesh, because OX App Suite v8 relies on all of them. The platform is delivered as Helm charts, and Helm 3.17.0 or newer is required. Support for Kubernetes is limited to versions N-1 and N-2, and Istio support covers the latest release plus two prior versions. Confirm your staff's depth in these areas, or budget for outside help with the initial build and handover.
Does the grommunio free tier work for a pilot?
The free Community package can suit a small pilot, because grommunio lists it for up to 5 users, but it comes without manufacturer support. Use the pilot to test Outlook connectivity through MAPI/HTTP, EWS and Exchange ActiveSync, your LDAP or Active Directory integration, and the migration path from Exchange or Domino. Before moving production mail, confirm which support level you need, since the paid Basic, Plus and Business packages carry per-user monthly prices on grommunio's pricing page. Licenses are sold through certified partners.
Why do the Open-Xchange support commitment dates matter for planning?
They determine how often you must upgrade and how long a release stays supported. A standard release is supported for 12 weeks, ending with the availability of the third following release, so a standard version can fall out of support quickly. An LTS release is supported until the next LTS release plus six months. Per the support commitment, v8.35 is discontinued and v8.47 is the current LTS, so a production build should target an LTS line and the upgrade budget should include regular moves to newer LTS releases.
What should we ask for in a written quote for a mail migration?
Ask for a fixed scope that names each deliverable, the systems in scope, and what is excluded, such as Notes applications that stay on Domino. Request line items for discovery, the target platform build, data migration, coexistence for calendars and free/busy, cutover support, documentation and handover. Ask how backup, upgrades and monitoring are priced after go-live, and whether ongoing support is a separate retainer. Confirm which licenses the quote covers, and ask how OX module or feature licensing terms in the agreement affect the total.
Which parts of the Domino cost change after migration?
Licensing costs for CCB or Messaging Express recur, so they fall away only when the mail users leave the platform and the entitlements are retired. Server hardware, storage, backup and staff time shift to the new platform and do not disappear. Expect one-time costs for discovery, migration tooling, testing and training. Ask your vendors which entitlements can be reduced during a transition period, and model the overlap period, when both platforms run, as a separate cost line.
How DeployOpen scopes a fixed-price implementation
DeployOpen plans, implements, hardens and documents self-hosted open-source mail platforms inside your own infrastructure, so you can compare the Domino CCB and Messaging Express cost model with a costed OX App Suite or grommunio option. Engagements are fixed-scope, with scope, deliverables and timelines agreed in writing before work starts.
How we scope
- We inventory named users, admin and test IDs, and mail-only users to size the Domino entitlement baseline.
- We list which Notes applications stay on Domino and which mail and calendar workloads move.
- Written scope names the target platform, directory source, coexistence needs and the cost comparison deliverable.
- Ongoing support and upgrades can be added as a retainer after the fixed-scope work is complete.
How we build
- We deploy the chosen platform in your cloud account, data center or air-gapped network.
- For OX App Suite v8, we plan Kubernetes, Helm, Redis, MariaDB and distributed storage for attachments.
- For grommunio, we plan the appliance, LDAP or Active Directory integration and Outlook client access.
- We test mail flow, calendar free/busy, client protocols and the migration scripts before any cutover.
How we hand over
- You receive architecture notes, runbooks and a per-component cost model that separates one-time and recurring costs.
- We document each licensing assumption, including any module that may carry separate fees under the vendor license terms.
- Migration logs, reconciliation reports and cutover steps are delivered with the system.
- We prepare systems, controls and evidence for compliance assessments, while independent auditors issue any audit report.
How we support
- Support follows the vendor's release cadence, so we plan upgrades against the published support commitment dates.
- We can run security testing of the deployed mail stack as part of a separate, written scope.
- Continuous testing and upgrades are available as retainers, priced from the agreed scope rather than a public list.
- Ask any quote to state what is one-time, what recurs, and which vendor subscription you still need to buy.
