Upgraded commercial trial experience

[gtzluis]

Summary

The commercial trial flow has been improved in Vaadin 24.9 to make it more developer-friendly, less interruptive, and more flexible across both dev and production environments. This brings clearer trial logic, less friction, and better support for real-world use cases like MVP demos.

---

What’s New

1. Frictionless 7-Day Trial Preview (No Registration)

• Start a 7-day trial instantly with no sign-up required
• Automatically triggered when:
  • You add a commercial component (e.g. vaadin-charts, copilot) and run the app
  • You open the dev mode menu (}> icon in bottom right)

2. Extended 30-Day Full Trial (Registration Required)

• Full commercial trial is now 30 days (previously shorter)
• Requires login via:
  • Email/password or social login (GitHub, Google, LinkedIn)
• Can be started:
  • From the same dev mode menu or popup
  • Or manually from vaadin.com/pricing → "Activate free trial"

3. Production Demo Mode with Banner

• If your trial expired but you still need to demo your app in production:
  • Add -DcommercialWithBanner to your build
  • App will compile and run, with a banner indicating that commercial features require a license
• No license = no silent failure, just visible messaging
• Great for stakeholder reviews, MVPs, and internal demos

---

Developer Benefits

• No friction to start evaluating — try before signing up
• Longer trial period gives more room for real testing
• Banner mode lets you safely run demos without a commercial license
• Clean separation between dev mode trial logic and production enforcement

---

Notes

• Production demo mode with banner is intentional and visible. It’s not a substitute for a valid license.
• All commercial tooling (like Copilot) behaves accordingly.

Let us know if you run into anything unexpected during dev or demo scenarios.