Sonatype Nexus Repository is an artifact repository manager. Sonatype’s help site says it “manages and distributes software components” (Sonatype Nexus Repository, read 2026-10-23). This guide covers its editions, formats and repository types, the Community Edition limits, and the end of OrientDB.
Every fact about Sonatype’s product comes from a Sonatype page, mostly in Sonatype’s own quoted words, linked with the date we read it. Sonatype changes its pages, so check each one before you decide.
What does Nexus Repository do?
Sonatype’s concepts page defines a repository manager as “a dedicated server application that stores and manages binary software artifacts and dependencies used in your development process” (Repository Manager Concepts, read 2026-10-23). Sonatype’s editions page says Nexus Repository “acts as the single source of truth and central control point for open source packages, build artifacts, container images, and AI/ML model dependencies across your software supply chain” (Editions and Feature Availability, read 2026-10-23).
The concepts page lists what a repository manager gives you, in Sonatype’s words:
- “Eliminate shadow downloads with centralized artifact storage.”
- “Simplify dependency resolution for both private and public components.”
- “Cache remote artifacts to reduce build times and improve build performance.”
- “Control access to artifacts and open-source components that present risk to the organization.”
Hosted, proxy and group repositories
Sonatype’s repository types page says Nexus Repository “supports hosted, proxy, and group repositories” (Repository Types, read 2026-10-23). The page describes each in turn:
- Proxy. “A proxy repository caches content from a remote repository.”
- Hosted. “A hosted repository is a repository that stores components in Nexus Repository as the authoritative location for these components.”
- Group. “A group repository combines multiple repositories, including other repository groups, into a single repository.”
The same page says of a group “Users can then rely on a single URL for their configuration needs” and “The order of the repositories within a Group repository matters.”
Formats
Sonatype’s formats page says Nexus Repository “supports the following repository formats in all distributions” and “Support for each format may vary by repository type (Proxy, Hosted, and Group), as shown in the table” (Formats, read 2026-10-23). The page lists Maven, npm, PyPI, Docker, OCI, NuGet, Go, Helm, Raw and Terraform among others.
Check that table for the format and repository type you need before you plan around it.
Editions
Sonatype’s overview says Nexus Repository “is available in Community, Pro, and Pro+ editions and can be self-hosted or provided as Nexus Repository Cloud” (Sonatype Nexus Repository, read 2026-10-23). Sonatype’s editions page describes the three (Editions and Feature Availability, read 2026-10-23):
- Community Edition. “Free, self-hosted artifact management for individual developers and small teams.”
- Pro. “Enterprise-grade availability, identity management, and storage resilience for mission-critical CI/CD pipelines.”
- Pro+. “Comprehensive software supply chain intake governance, including automated malware quarantine, license policy enforcement, and AI/MCP dependency controls.”
The editions page also has a table. In it, “High Availability (HA) and Clustering” and “SAML 2.0 / OIDC and Single Sign-On” are “Available” in Pro and Pro+ and “N/A” in Community Edition, and the Community Edition deployment model is “Self-Hosted only”.
Nexus Repository Cloud
Sonatype’s cloud page compares the two ways to run it (Feature Parity with Sonatype Cloud, read 2026-10-23). The hosting model is “Customer Managed” when self-hosted and “Sonatype Managed” in the cloud, and maintenance and upgrades are “Manual” self-hosted and “Automated” in the cloud. That page’s title and columns say “Sonatype Cloud”; the help site’s overview above and Sonatype’s pricing page call it “Nexus Repository Cloud”.
Pricing
Sonatype’s editions table lists the pricing model as “Free” for Community Edition and “Usage-based” for Pro and Pro+. The pricing page says “Sonatype products are only offered via a consumption-based pricing option for new customer contracts” (Sonatype pricing, read 2026-10-23).
The pricing page also lists an “Enterprise” package, described as “All Features in Pro+, plus:” and “CDN Acceleration”, so the number of editions depends on which Sonatype page you read. Our Sonatype Nexus pricing guide works through what each option costs to run.
Community Edition limits
Sonatype renamed the free edition. Sonatype’s 3.77.0 release notes say “As of version 3.77.0, the free edition of Nexus Repository is now called Sonatype Nexus Repository Community Edition.” (3.77.0 release notes, read 2026-10-23).
Sonatype’s Usage Center page gives “the Community Edition usage limits of 40,000 total components or 100,000 requests per day” (Usage Center, read 2026-10-23). Past either one, the page says “users are not able to add new components until the deployment returns to being under both of these limits”. The same page says “Usage that exceeds these metrics requires upgrading to a Nexus Repository Pro license.”
Our Nexus Community Edition limits article covers how the limits changed, how requests are counted, and your options.
The end of OrientDB in 3.70
Sonatype’s upgrade page says “Nexus Repository 3.70.x is the last release that supports OrientDB” and “Support for OrientDB is sunsetted and is no longer included in Nexus Repository versions 3.71.0 and beyond” (Upgrading to Nexus Repository 3.71.0 and Beyond, read 2026-10-23). The same page says “Before updating to a release after 3.70.x, you must migrate off from the Orient database while upgrading Java.”
If your server still runs OrientDB, Stuck on Nexus 3.70 (OrientDB)? Upgrade or move shows Sonatype’s upgrade path and the move to CloudRepo.
When Nexus fits and when it does not
Nexus Repository suits teams that want to run a repository manager themselves, need several formats behind one server, and are happy to start on the free Community Edition.
Nexus Repository can be a poor fit when:
- You reach a Community Edition limit. Sonatype gives 40,000 total components or 100,000 requests per day, and a Pro license to lift them.
- You would rather not run it. The cloud page lists self-hosted maintenance as “Manual”, with “Customer schedules upgrades, OS patches, and Java updates.”
- You need high availability or single sign-on on the free edition. The editions table lists both as “N/A” there.
This section is our reading of Sonatype’s pages, not Sonatype’s claims. Weigh it against your own needs.
Moving off Nexus
CloudRepo is a managed artifact repository for Maven, PyPI, npm and Docker: we run the servers, the upgrades and the patches. Each self-serve plan publishes its storage and monthly transfer allowance, with unlimited repositories and users, and starts with a 14-day free trial. See the plans.
Our migration tool, cloudrepo-migrate nexus3, reads a Nexus 3 server through its REST API and its repository URLs, and never writes to it. Version 0.6.0 of cloudrepo-migrate is tested against Nexus 3.76.0, a real server, on hosted Maven, npm, PyPI and Docker repositories.
Install it, then do a dry run, which lists what would move and uploads nothing:
pipx install cloudrepo-migratecloudrepo-migrate nexus3 --nexus-url https://nexus.example.com --org your-org --dry-runIt reads your Nexus login from NEXUS_USERNAME and NEXUS_PASSWORD, and your CloudRepo token from CLOUDREPO_TOKEN: set them in your shell, never on the command line. The tool moves into CloudRepo repositories that already exist, so create them first. Then do the real run, the same command without --dry-run:
cloudrepo-migrate nexus3 --nexus-url https://nexus.example.com --org your-orgWithout --dry-run, cloudrepo-migrate nexus3 moves a Nexus 3 server’s hosted Maven, npm and PyPI repositories and checks every file it moves. It also moves every tag of every image in a Nexus 3 server’s hosted Docker repositories, from version 0.6.0. Proxy and group repositories are listed and skipped with a reason, and a re-run resumes.
The Nexus 3 migration guide has the steps and every option. For the walk-through, see Migrate from Sonatype Nexus 3 to CloudRepo. To compare your options first, see Best Sonatype Nexus Alternatives and our Nexus alternative page.
Before you sign a Nexus Pro quote, send it to us: we’ll give you a very competitive counteroffer.
Every Sonatype page this article quotes was read on 2026-10-23. Vendors change their pages, so check each one before you decide.