Edition comparison
Starter, Grow, and Enterprise are the same Art2link ESB runtime, three editions across two operating models: Starter is self-deployed, while Grow and Enterprise share the managed model, Grow being the Enterprise edition at a fixed single core. All three editions are available from the Microsoft Marketplace, and every edition installs automatically in under 30 minutes. What differs is who deploys, who upgrades, what hardware sits underneath, and which adapters are available.
The choice is operational rather than functional: Starter is a fixed-size, customer-self-deployed installation from the Microsoft Marketplace; Enterprise is a managed deployment that Cerebrum City sizes, upgrades, and pipelines on the customer's behalf, and unlocks the heavier adapters that integrate with packaged enterprise systems. Grow is the Enterprise edition at a fixed single-core size: the same managed deployment and the same capabilities, shipped with one core rather than the larger core counts Enterprise offers. Grow is not metered, so the single core is the only limit, whatever the customer can push through that core is included, and it suits workloads a single core can carry that still need Enterprise features. Enterprise ships in 2, 4, 8, 16, and 32 core sizes, resized as the workload grows.
| Capability | Starter | Grow | Enterprise |
|---|---|---|---|
| Deployment model | Customer self-deploys from the Microsoft Marketplace into their own subscription. | Managed deployment by Cerebrum City into the customer's subscription. | Managed deployment by Cerebrum City into the customer's subscription. |
| Infrastructure sizing | Fixed at deploy: App Service Plan B2, each Azure database at 10 DTUs. Not changeable, and plenty for development, test, and small workloads. | Ships with 1 core, fixed. | Ships in 2, 4, 8, 16, or 32 cores, resized among those sizes as the workload grows. |
| Billing model | License free, no charge for the software. The cost is the fixed Azure infrastructure in the customer's subscription, flat and independent of usage. | Flat, priced for the single-core deployment, independent of usage. | Flat, priced by core count, agreed alongside the deployment, independent of usage. |
| Version upgrades | No in-place upgrade. Customer installs a newer instance and migrates integrations across. | In-place, through pre-production first, same as Enterprise. | In-place. Cerebrum City promotes the upgrade through pre-production first, the customer validates, then production. |
| CICD pipeline | Not provided. | Injected and operated by Cerebrum City. | Injected and operated by Cerebrum City across every environment in the deployment. |
| Pre-production environment | Customer-managed. Stand up a second Starter instance to serve as pre-production and migrate integrations into it for validation. | Required. Stood up and maintained by Cerebrum City. | Required. Stood up and maintained by Cerebrum City for upgrade validation. |
| Standard adapters | Included, API, Azure Blob, File Share, O365 Mail, Scheduler, Service Bus, SFTP, SQL. | Included. | Included. |
| Enterprise adapters | Not available. | Included, same set as Enterprise. | Included, SAP, MQ Series, Salesforce, CloudSuite, and similar. |
| Support contract | Optional. Purchased in 40-hour blocks. Default response SLA: 8 business hours. | Required. Terms agreed case by case. | Required. Terms agreed case by case. |
| Path to the other editions | Move to Grow or Enterprise by exporting the deployment and importing it into a new managed deployment. | Move to Enterprise when the workload outgrows a single core, a resize to 2 or more cores agreed with Cerebrum City, not a migration. | n/a, Enterprise is the destination edition. |
Because Starter is a self-contained Marketplace deployment with fixed infrastructure, moving an existing Starter installation onto Grow or Enterprise is the same shape as any side-by-side migration: stand the new instance up alongside the old, carry the integrations across, then retire the old one. From that point onwards, the managed deployment receives in-place version upgrades. Grow and Enterprise share the same deployment shape, so moving between those two later is a resize, from 1 core to 2 or more, agreed with Cerebrum City, no migration involved.
Starter ships without an included support contract. Customers who need formal support purchase it in 40-hour blocks against a default response SLA of 8 business hours. Blocks are consumed against incident response, configuration help, and migration assistance, whatever the customer brings to the queue.
Grow and Enterprise require an active support contract for the duration of the deployment. Terms, hours, response SLA, named contacts, on-call coverage, are agreed case by case alongside the deployment itself; there is no shrink-wrapped tier because every managed deployment is sized differently to begin with.
Choosing between them
If the workload fits inside a B2 App Service Plan and Azure databases at 10 DTUs, and the team is comfortable owning the deployment and migrating across versions, Starter is the cheaper and faster path to live. If the workload needs to grow, needs to talk to packaged enterprise systems through the enterprise adapters, or needs an upgrade discipline that goes through a pre-production environment with someone else's hands on the pipeline, Enterprise is the right starting point. And if the requirements say Enterprise but the volume does not, a handful of flows, an SAP or Salesforce connection, low traffic, Grow delivers the full Enterprise edition on a single core, with a clean step up to Enterprise's 2 to 32 core sizes when volume justifies it.