Gurobi For Universities

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 free 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."


Types of Academic Licenses - Get up and running in minutes.

Individual Academic Licenses

  • Named-user academic license: This license can be installed on a single physical machine. Users may install and license Gurobi for their own use on more than one machine.
  • To obtain this license:
    1. After logging in, visit the Download Gurobi Optimizer page, and download the version you need, as well as the README.txt.
    2. After downloading, visit the Free Academic License page to request the free license.
    3. Follow the instructions in README.txt to install the software.
    4. Once installed, run 'grbgetkey' using the argument provided (ex: grbgetkey ae36ac20-16e6-acd2-f242-4da6e765fa0a). The 'grbgetkey' program will prompt you to store the license key on your machine, as well as validate your eligibility by confirming your academic domain (e.g., any '.edu' address).
    5. There is no limit on the number of free licenses you can obtain, although each license must be generated individually.

    If you have any problems, please refer to the Academic Validation Troubleshooting instructions.

Educational Institution Site Licenses

  • Multi-user academic site license: This license of Gurobi can be installed on a university's local-area network.
  • To obtain this license:
    1. Ask your network administrator to email key@gurobi.com and ask for an academic site license request form.
    2. Once the form has been submitted and approved, we will send instructions to your Take Gurobi With You When You Graduateadministrator on how to obtain and install the license.

Young Professional Licenses

  • Take Gurobi with You license: 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 at no cost to either the graduating student or their new employer.
  • Visit this page to get started.

Free Academic License Requirements

  • Can only be used by faculty, students, or staff of a recognized degree-granting academic institution
  • Can only be used for teaching or research that will be published in a public article
  • Must be validated from a recognized academic domain
  • These licenses expire 12 months after the creation date, and can be renewed annually

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. Next, configure Gurobi as a solver for your modeling system (this may require you to install additional tools):

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

Technical Support

If your question is related to product installation or licensing, please email key@gurobi.com.

We have a variety of support resources for academic users, all available from the Gurobi support portal:

  • A knowledge base, with technical articles covering optimization algorithms, programming with Gurobi and more
  • A discussion group where you can interact with other users in the Gurobi community
  • Support tickets, where you can get direct assistance for issues with installation and license keys
The system includes a search engine that checks both knowledge base articles and the discussion group.

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