OpenPBS
What it is
OpenPBS is software for scheduling jobs and managing workloads in high-performance computing. It supports HPC clusters, clouds, and supercomputers, with scalability for millions of cores and testing beyond 50,000 nodes. Its policy-driven scheduler balances job turnaround time and resource use when placing jobs. A plugin framework gives administrators visibility and options to extend customized implementations. Health checks monitor faults and can mitigate them automatically; fail-over architecture is designed to keep jobs running through failures without a single point of failure. OpenPBS is self-hosted and free under the AGPL 3.0 open-source license, while PBS Pro is also available under commercial licensing. Public-sector organizations such as academic and research facilities generally choose the open-source license. Community help is available through a volunteer forum, but responses and bug fixes are not guaranteed. OpenPBS is integrated into the OpenHPC software stack. Its installation guide says SELinux is not supported.
For and against
For
- Supports millions of cores and over 50,000 nodes.
- Policy-driven scheduling balances turnaround and utilization.
- Health checks can mitigate faults automatically.
- Fail-over architecture avoids a single point of failure.
Against
- SELinux is not supported.
- Volunteer forum support has no response or fix guarantees.
- Critical and high security issues are fixed in the next major release.
The verdict
OpenPBS combines scheduling, health checks, and fail-over for self-hosted high-performance computing. Check its SELinux limitation and the community forum’s lack of support guarantees before choosing it.
Who it suits
OpenPBS suits organizations running HPC clusters, clouds, or supercomputers that need job scheduling and workload management. Its open-source license may suit public-sector users, including academic and research facilities.
Plans and prices
OpenPBS open-source edition
AGPL 3.0 license · community forum support has no guarantees
Read 1 Oct 2026 · openpbs.atlassian.net
On the record
- Audience
- Public-sector organizations such as academia and research facilities generally opt for the open-source license.openpbs.atlassian.net · read 1 Oct 2026
- Community support
- Community support is provided through a volunteer forum with no fee and no guarantee that questions will be answered or bugs addressed.openpbs.atlassian.net · read 1 Oct 2026
- Deployment environments
- OpenPBS supports HPC clusters, clouds, and supercomputers.openpbs.org · read 1 Oct 2026
- Health checks
- The health-check framework monitors and automatically mitigates faults.openpbs.org · read 1 Oct 2026
- Integration
- OpenPBS is integrated into the OpenHPC software stack, a Linux Foundation Collaborative Project.github.com · read 1 Oct 2026
- Licensing
- The PBS Pro software is dual licensed as commercial software and under the AGPL 3.0 open-source license.openpbs.atlassian.net · read 1 Oct 2026
- Plugin framework
- Its flexible plugin framework provides administration visibility and extensibility for customized implementations.openpbs.org · read 1 Oct 2026
- Project support channels
- The project provides a community forum, contributor portal, source code repository, and issue tracker.openpbs.org · read 1 Oct 2026
- Purpose
- OpenPBS optimizes job scheduling and workload management in high-performance computing environments.openpbs.org · read 1 Oct 2026
- Resiliency
- Automatic fail-over architecture has no single point of failure, and jobs continue running despite failures.openpbs.org · read 1 Oct 2026
- Scalability
- OpenPBS supports millions of cores and has been tested beyond 50,000 nodes.openpbs.org · read 1 Oct 2026
- Scheduling
- Policy-driven scheduling balances job turnaround time and utilization with optimal job placement.openpbs.org · read 1 Oct 2026
- Security updates
- Security updates are primarily delivered as minor-version patches, and known critical and high issues are fixed in the next major release.openpbs.atlassian.net · read 1 Oct 2026
- SELinux limitation
- The OpenPBS installation guide states that OpenPBS does not support SELinux.github.com · read 1 Oct 2026
