KEMP Technologies' is now giving away its application load balancer, LoadMaster, for unlimited free use, an effort to get the commercial-grade product into the hands of more IT developers and open source enthusiasts.

Jason Dover, director of product line management at KEMP, says providing LoadMaster for free should enable the company to gain market share in areas such as Windows Network Load Balancing (WNLB), NGNIX, and HAProxy, where free load balancing products are being used.

Whenever companies come out with free options, it raises the question, "Well, what about making money?" In KEMP's case, the plan is to use the free LoadMaster offer to generate interest in the larger KEMP brand, as well as to grab some market share. Also, the free LoadMaster provides an easy option to upgrade to a paid offering with more features such as global server load balancing (GSLB), the edge security pack (ESP), and web application firewall additions.

With so many organizations providing free and open source products, it can be hard to make an impression. For KEMP, offering LoadMaster gratis stands out because it includes all major commercial features, says Dover. While there is a capped capacity, users still can experience LoadMaster's capabilities with a perpetual license.

With all of the core functionality available at no cost, users can truly see what application delivery will look like with LoadMaster, rather than a limited interaction that some other free options offer. Beyond that, LoadMaster is an optimized and hardened virtual appliance, which reduces required host configuration to a minimum, KEMP says.