StackMAX by SMX.IQ

Own your platform again.

StackMAX converges compute, storage, and networking into one open, KVM-based private-cloud platform — enterprise capability under a flat, perpetual license, with no license fee and nothing recurring to keep it running.

~/ deploy stackmax

# converge compute, storage, and networking
$ stackmax deploy --nodes 6 --cores 192

✓ KVM hypervisor initialized on 6 nodes
✓ Ceph storage pool converged — no SAN required
✓ SDN + firewall layer online
✓ Kubernetes control plane attached

# unlimited VMs, one flat cost — no per-core licensing
$ stackmax license status
→ perpetual · flat per-server · unlimited VMs

Recurring license fee

One-time, flat cost per server — perpetual license, unlimited VMs, first year of support included

Same cost

16-core node or 128-core node

Per-server pricing doesn't rise with core count, unlike per-core licensed platforms

15+ yrs

In production across Europe

Deployed at scale across telecom, research, aerospace, and media environments

The scale-inversion problem

Per-core pricing punishes exactly the growth you're supposed to want.

Modern CPUs keep getting denser, so every hardware refresh raises the license bill before a single new workload runs — precisely backwards from what most IT budgets can absorb. Proprietary virtualization platforms bundle storage and networking convergence into the enterprise edition and price it per core, so a sixteen-core edge server and a hundred-and-twenty-eight-core datacenter node end up on very different bills for the same software.

StackMAX was engineered around a simpler idea: convergence — compute, storage, and networking in one stack — shouldn't get more expensive as your hardware gets better. One flat, perpetual, per-server cost, set once at deployment, independent of core count, RAM, or storage. Open formats and a full transfer of configurations, scripts, and documentation mean the platform stays yours, not rented.

Cost efficiency

A one-time, flat cost per server — with unlimited VMs and nothing tied to CPU, RAM, or storage. The license is perpetual, with no subscription and nothing recurring to keep it running.

No license fee — you own the platform outright
Flat per-server pricing, regardless of core density
First year of support included; managed support optional

Openness, not lock-in

Open formats plus a full transfer of configurations, scripts, and documentation — with training — so exit cost stays low and the leverage stays with your team.

Runs on commodity x86-64 hardware you already own
No certified-appliance list, no forced refresh
Converged Ceph storage removes the need for a dedicated SAN

Reliability at scale

HCI and high availability, software-defined networking, Kubernetes, and VDI are part of the base platform — not paywalled behind a higher edition — and security inherits from the mainline Linux kernel rather than a single vendor's patch cycle.

SSO/MFA, RBAC, and optional GxP governance
24x7 security monitoring
Direct GPU allocation for AI and GPU-dense workloads