Gurobi For Universities

At Gurobi, we strongly support the teaching and use of optimization within academic institutions. That's why we have made it very easy for academic users to get one or more copies of Gurobi for use in class or for research. These are the same full-featured, no-size-limit versions of Gurobi that commercial customers use.

Two Academic Versions Available

Gurobi academic licenses for universities fall into two general categories:

Multi-user academic site license: This license is a full-featured university version of Gurobi that can be installed on a university's local-area network.
Named-user academic license: This license is a full-featured university version of Gurobi that can be installed on a single physical machine. Users may install and license Gurobi for their own use on more than one machine.

Important Details

The free university Academic Licenses for Gurobi have all the features and performance of the full Gurobi Optimizer, with no limits on model size. The only restrictions on the use of these licenses are: (i) they can only be used by faculty, students, or staff of a recognized degree-granting academic institution, (ii) they can only be used for research or educational purposes, and (iii) they must be validated from a recognized academic domain, as described below. They expire twelve (12) months after the date on which your license was generated, but users can renew a license by repeating this process.

Obtaining a Free Academic License

To obtain a free multi-user academic site license (Unlimited-Simultaneous-Use, Floating-Use academic license):

Ask your network administrator to email key@gurobi.com and ask for an academic site license request form.
Once the form has been submitted and approved, we will send instructions to your administrator on how to obtain and install the license.

To obtain a free named-user academic license (Named-User, Unlimited-Use, Single-Machine academic license):

After logging in, visit the Download Gurobi Optimizer page, select the version you want to download and click the related 'Download' button. You should also download README.txt.
After downloading, visit the Free Academic License page and follow the instructions on that page.
Follow the instructions in README.txt to install the software.
Once the software has been installed, run 'grbgetkey' using the argument provided when you created your license (ex: grbgetkey ae36ac20-16e6-acd2-f242-4da6e765fa0a). The 'grbgetkey' program will retrieve your license key and prompt you to store it on your machine. It will also validate your academic license eligibility by confirming that you are connected to the Internet from a recognized academic domain (e.g., any '.edu' address).

If you have trouble validating your academic license, please refer to our Academic Validation Troubleshooting instructions.

Note: There is no limit on the number of free Academic licenses that you can obtain. However, each such license must be generated individually.

Using a Free Academic License with Modeling Systems

You may use a free Academic License for Gurobi with an existing license for AMPL, GAMS or MPL. To do this, first follow the instructions above to install Gurobi Optimizer and obtain a free academic license. Next, you will need to configure Gurobi as a solver for your modeling system (this may require you to install additional tools):

For AMPL, detailed instructions can be found in the AMPL-Gurobi Guide.
For GAMS, please see the instructions for OsiGurobi and the professional Gurobi link on the GAMS website.
For MPL, the academic version already comes with the Gurobi solver installed, so no additional configuration steps are needed.

To purchase an academic license for AMPL, please contact us. To purchase an academic license for GAMS, please contact GAMS directly. Free academic licenses for MPL are available; see the MPL Academic Program for details.

Take Gurobi With You Program for New Graduates

Take Gurobi With You When You Graduate Our goal is to help graduating students continue to use Gurobi as they move from their academic studies to a commercial environment. To help with this transition, we are happy to provide a commercial named-user license with an expiration date one year from the date of issue. This license is provided at no cost to either the graduating student or their new employer, and may be used within the company exactly as if it had been purchased at full price.

Signing up is easy. Visit the Take Gurobi With You program request page, which has the full details.

Technical Support

For users of our no-cost academic licenses, we limit support to product installation and licensing questions. If your question is related to product installation or licensing, please email us at key@gurobi.com.

For all other questions, or to discuss the product, we have set up a Gurobi discussion group. You can read current and past messages online, or subscribe to receive messages via email:

We encourage users to answer each others' questions; Gurobi staff members will monitor the group and answer questions as time permits.