What Businesses Need To Know About UiPath Community Edition (Hint: It's Not Free)

Many organizations start their automation journey with the UiPath Automation Cloud for Community (more commonly known as UiPath Community Edition) because it’s free, easy to get started, and great for learning. But as your business grows, continuing to rely on the UiPath Community Edition can put you at risk, especially if you are running these RPA bots for commercial purposes.

In this post, we break down who can legally use UiPath Community Edition, why many businesses unknowingly fall out of compliance, and how you can migrate safely to either UiPath’s commercial plans or a more cost-effective platform like Microsoft Power Automate.

What UiPath Community Edition Is Actually Intended For

Traditionally, the UiPath Community Edition has been primarily intended for individual developers, small businesses, and learning purposes. For a business to qualify as a Small-to-Medium Business (SMB) and use the UiPath Community Edition for direct business purposes, it must, together with its Affiliates, collectively have:

1. Less than 250 machines (physical or virtual) or users, AND

2. Less than USD 5 million in annual revenues.

Organizations exceeding these limitations are considered Large Businesses and may only use the Community Edition for evaluation and non-profit purposes (such as education, hackathons, individual or institutional research, and internal trainings.)

However, do note that there has been a subtle shift in this stance. The latest UiPath Community Agreement now states that Community Edition can be used “solely for non-commercial purposes, such as education and individual or institutional research.” Refer to clause 3.1 for more details.

This is also clearly stated on the sign-up page for the UiPath Automation Cloud for Community:

In summary, this means:

• You can’t rely on UiPath Community Edition to run automations in production environment that generate revenue or support your business operations, regardless of the size of your business.

• Using UiPath Community Edition as a “free enterprise license” for your organization is not aligned with the agreement.

• UiPath reserves the right to change terms, monitor usage and enforce compliance.

Important: The above is a practical explanation for business and IT users and not legal advice. For a definitive interpretation, always consult your legal team and the official UiPath Community Agreement.

The Risks of Non-Compliance With the UiPath Community Agreement

Many companies, including their employees, are unaware of the limitations and restrictions on the usage of the UiPath Community Edition. However, ignorance is not an excuse and continuing to use the software for commercial purposes creates several risks:

1. License Non-Compliance

You may be operating outside the terms of the UiPath Community Agreement. This becomes a major issue during vendor audits and compliance reviews. In certain instances, there may be pressure to regularize licenses quickly, often under tight timelines and unfavorable terms.

2. No Enterprise Support

Community users receive no guaranteed support or Service Level Agreements (SLAs). If your production robot fails, there's no formal escalation path. In addition, the UiPath Community Edition comes with certain restrictions in software capabilities which may limit what you can accomplish with UiPath's agentic automation platform.

3. Operational Instability

Free tiers can change without notice. For example, are you aware that clause 3.1 states that "UiPath reserves the right to delete all Customer Data in the Software if the Customer fails to use that Software for more than 90 (ninety) consecutive calendar days"? Relying on the UiPath Community Edition for mission-critical work therefore presents a long-term risk to your business continuity.

4. Strategic Lock-In

Bear in mind that most RPA software (including UiPath) are proprietary in nature, meaning it is difficult to convert to another RPA platform. If you have established a significant automation program, you might find that your options for migrating out of UiPath Community Edition are costly, complex, and/or highly disruptive.

In other words, if you are a business, you definitely need to consider transitioning away from UiPath Community Edition into something more compliant and sustainable.

Your Migration Options

Start by conducting an internal audit to understand your UiPath setup, existing UiPath subscriptions (if any), current workloads and future plans. Then, consider the following options:

Option 1: Upgrade to UiPath commercial plans

For organizations committed to UiPath:

• Select the right mix of licenses across the platform, users, robots and consumption SKUs based on your requirements and use cases.

• Design a target architecture that meets your enterprise needs including deployment options (on-premise or cloud), high availability, disaster recovery, etc.

• Plan a structured migration from Community tenants, users, and robots to enterprise environments

• Implement best practices for:

  • Folder and tenant design

  • Governance and change management

  • Monitoring, logging and support

Option 2: Migrate to Microsoft Power Automate

If you want a more cost-effective, yet trusted RPA platform, Microsoft Power Automate is often the best choice. For example, for one of our clients, migrating from UiPath to Microsoft Power Automate reduced subscription fees by a staggering 8.9x alone.

In this case, you would need to analyze your existing UiPath workflows before coming up with a suitable migration strategy. For example, identify quick wins—processes that can be easily converted to Power Automate cloud or desktop flows. Or to introduce AI-powered automation with AI Builder and Azure OpenAI at a later stage when the core RPA processes have been migrated successfully.

Option 3: Hybrid UiPath + Power Automate

Many organizations benefit from a hybrid model:

• Keep UiPath where deep RPA or legacy integration is critical

• Use Power Automate for high-volume SaaS, Microsoft 365 and workflow automation

• Define clear ownership, guardrails and integration points between both platforms

Generally though, if you are a SMB, our recommendation is to stick with one platform. Most SMBs simply do not have the time, resources, and capability to support multiple RPA platforms.

Final Thoughts

UiPath Community Edition is fantastic for learning, experimenting and building proofs of concept. But relying on it for production automation becomes both risky and non-compliant.

Migrating early — whether to UiPath’s commercial plans or Microsoft Power Automate — ensures stability, support, and scalability for years to come. If you’re unsure whether your current UiPath usage is compliant or want to explore your options, we’re here to help.