xTuple PostBooks is free and open source. You can download it from http://sourceforge.net/projects/postbooks and use it, modify it, etc, according to the CPAL license. A recent blog post from Wally Tonra, VP of Sales, explains the pricing: "We have had prospective customers and partners from all over the world who have asked for a version of the software for which they can have a commercial license. We have provided that license and that price list for those customers, and have included limited support with that license." (See http://www.xtuple.org/node/3420 for full quote). So, PostBooks is free, but xTuple provides commercial terms for customers who require a contractual license. The free version and the commercially licensed version are exactly the same.

The postbooks community version is open source and free, although I will agree that the pricing on the web site is confusing.

Actually, no. The PostBooks edition is completely free and open source, and has been the #1 most active project on Sourceforge for a year and a half: http://sourceforge.net/projects/postbooks . You can purchase a commercial license to PostBooks, which comes with unlimited helpdesk support - but you don't have to. The software is the same.

Sorry you don't like the website - we'd certainly welcome any constructive criticism.

beatljuice is correct...there are three different versions for xTuple ERP and it looks as though the PostBooks is free but after further research there is a pricing page that says all versions are commercial software. Their site is also awful and hard to find such information...so doesn't look good for the program if their site is hard to use.