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Usage-Based Consumption Guide for Self-Hosted Nexus Repository Deployments

Self-hosted Sonatype Nexus Repository deployment administrators can follow this guide to calculate their usage.

The following values help you monitor your organization’s usage:

  • Max total requests per month – total requests in a calendar month

  • Peak components in a month – the highest component count observed during a specific calendar month

The sections below help guide you to where to find these numbers depending on your Nexus Repository 3 version as well as how to use these metrics to calculate usage over time to determine what usage level your license will require.

For full details on how these numbers are calculated, see the Usage Metrics documentation and our documentation on how components are calculated in Nexus Repository.

Nexus Repository Versions 3.80.0 and Above

Take the following steps to find your historical usage in versions 3.80.x and beyond:

  1. Log into your Nexus Repository instance as an administrator.

  2. Navigate to the Historical Usage tab under Settings → System → Licensing. This view displays your repository usage trends over the past 12 months.

  3. For each calendar month shown, record the following:

    1. Total Requests – Your maximum total requests per month licensing metric.

    2. Peak Components – Your peak component count that month licensing metric.

Note that this view starts collecting data only after you upgrade to version 3.80.x. Once you upgrade, you will only see the current month; the 12-month view will populate going forward. Monthly request metrics update once per day while other metrics update roughly every hour.

For details on the other metrics displayed in this table, see our Historical Usage Metrics help documentation.

Nexus Repository Version 3.79.x

Take the following steps to find your Usage Center information in version 3.79.x:

Note

The Usage Center was not available for high availability (HA) deployments until version 3.80.x. If you are using an HA deployment, you will need to upgrade to 3.80.x and use your historical usage metrics as described in the section above.

  1. Log into your Nexus Repository instance as an administrator.

  2. Locate the Usage Center on the home landing page of your instance.

  3. Capture the following metrics from the Requests Per Month panel:

    1. Total requests (current month)

    2. Average monthly requests (last 12 months)

    3. Highest monthly requests (last 12 months)

  4. To calculate peak components for the month, do one of the following:

    1. Option 1 (preferred) – Upgrade to version 3.80.x or above and locate this information in the Historical Usage tab under Settings → System → Licensing.

    2. Option 2 – Poll the Service Metrics Data API daily and take the max of component_total_count within the calendar month.

      1. Endpoint – GET /service/metrics/data (requires nexus:metrics:read permissions)

      2. Use gauges."nexus.analytics.component_total_count".value. Track component_total_count over 30 days to get a peak value.

Sample Commands for Service Metrics Data API

See the Sample Commands for Service Metrics Data API section below for example commands you can copy and update to suit your needs.

Note that monthly request metrics update once per day and are based on UTC.

Nexus Repository Versions 3.66.x – 3.78.x

Take the following steps to find your Usage Center information in version 3.66.x – 3.78.x:

Note

The Usage Center was not available for high availability (HA) deployments until version 3.80.x. If you are using an HA deployment, you will need to upgrade to 3.80.x and use your historical usage metrics as described in the section above.

  1. Log into your Nexus Repository instance as an administrator.

  2. Locate the Usage Center on the home landing page of your instance. While no monthly metrics are available until version 3.79.x, you can still find the following information in your Usage Center:

    1. Total components (point in time)

    2. Requests per day

    3. Peak requests per minute

  3. Leverage the Service Metrics Data API to calculate the following:

    1. Peak components in a month

      1. Call GET /service/metrics/data daily (requires nexus:metrics:read permissions).

      2. Store gauges."nexus.analytics.component_total_count".value. Track component_total_count over 30 days and use the highest value to find your peak value.

    2. Total requests in a month

      1. Call GET /service/metrics/data daily (requires nexus:metrics:read permissions).

      2. Sum daily request counts over the calendar month using gauges."nexus.analytics.content_request_count".value.day.

Sample Commands for Service Metrics Data API

See the Sample Commands for Service Metrics Data API section below for example commands you can copy and update to suit your needs.

Note that your requests might look higher than download counts because Nexus Repository counts all http interactions to /repository/* endpoints. This includes downloads, uploads, metadata (e.g., Maven metadata, Docker token and manifest lookups), and repository API browsing/search. A single docker pull translates to many HTTP requests. See the Usage Metrics help documentation for details.

Nexus Repository Versions Before 3.66.x

If you are on a Nexus Repository version older than 3.66.x, we strongly recommend that you upgrade. Your version has been sunset and is also missing important security fixes. See our Nexus Repository upgrade help documentation.

If you are unable to upgrade, you can attempt to use the log parsing option detailed below to calculate monthly total requests and then work with a Sonatype Sales Engineer to derive the necessary statistics. You can then use the manual process for calculating total components detailed below.

Log‑Parsing Fallback (any version)

You can use log parsing as a fallback when monthly request totals aren’t available or if you need to backfill history or verify user interface/API numbers. Note that you will still need to use either the historical usage (version 3.80.x+) or service metrics data API described in the sections above to calculate peak components.

Locate Nexus Repository Request Logs

  1. Locate your data directory (referred to as $data-dir). By default, this is located at sonatype-work/nexus3 relative to the installation directory.

  2. Locate logs in $data-dir/log/.

  3. Locate the request log, which is the request.log file plus rotated/archived files. This contains IP and username by default and is not always visible in the built-in log viewer. Browse the filesystem if needed.

Nexus Repository usage requests are all HTTP requests to /repository/*. Your parser must filter for /repository/ paths (this excludes admin/API endpoints outside of repository paths).

Retrieve Monthly Total Requests

Use the commands below to retrieve the monthly total requests (sum across node logs) as needed.

Before proceeding, ensure your filter matches your request log format. Only /repository/* URLs should be counted toward usage.

# Example for August 2025, single node:
zgrep -h " /repository/" /nexus-data/log/request-2025-08-*.log.gz 2>/dev/null | wc -l

# Include current day's unrotated log too (if in the target month):
grep -h " /repository/" /nexus-data/log/request.log 2>/dev/null | wc -l

Repeat these commands on each node (for HA deployments) and sum the line counts.

Jetty Upgrade Caution (3.81.x+)

If you customized request‑logging, Jetty 12 in 3.81 may require config updates to keep request logs flowing (and in the expected format). Verify your logs after the upgrade.

Manually Calculating Total Components For OrientDB Deployments

If you are on a pre-3.66.x Nexus Repository version or are otherwise unable to leverage the Service Metrics Data API to calculate total components, you can use the below technique to find this information.

This technique involves examining the contents of the embedded OrientDB, which keeps a running total of the components it manages.

Warning

Do not connect to the embedded OrientDB inside a running Nexus Instance. Doing so can lead to data corruption.

  1. Ensure you have stopped your Nexus Repository instance.

  2. Locate your nexus-orient-console.jar; this is most likely in your installation directory at $install-dir/lib/support/nexus-orient-console.jar.

  3. Locate the database directory of your stopped Nexus Repository instance or a backup copy made while your instance was stopped. By default, this is located at $install-dir/sonatype-work/nexus3/db.

  4. Use the following command to navigate to your OrientDB database directory:

    cd <orientdb-dir>

  5. Run the OrientDB console application:

    java -jar <nexus-orient-console.jar-location>

  6. At the OrientDB prompt, connect to the component database:

    CONNECT PLOCAL:./component
CONNECT PLOCAL:./component <db_user_name> <db_password>

- - default db username: admin 
- - default db password: admin

  7. Count the number of components:

    select count(*) from component

Sample Commands for the Service Metrics Data API

Note that using the Service Metrics Data API requires nexus:metrics:read permissions.

Copy and update the following sample commands to use with the Service Metrics Data API:

  1. Use the following command (updated with your details) to obtain a current snapshot; this will return many metrics as a JSON:

    curl -u <user>:<pass> "https://<nexus>/service/metrics/data" -L | jq .

  2. Use the following command (updated with your details) to extract today's request count (UTC day) and current component totals:

    curl -s -u <user>:<pass> "https://<nexus>/service/metrics/data" -L \
| jq '{
  requests_today: .gauges["nexus.analytics.content_request_count"].value.day,
  total_components_now: .gauges["nexus.analytics.component_total_count"].value
}'

  3. Details on the metrics provided by the API are available in the Service Metrics Data API help documentation.

When calculating for licensing, consider the following:

  • Max total requests in a month = sum of requests_today across all days in that calendar month (UTC).

  • Peak components in a month = max of total_components_now observed on any day in that month (UTC).

Practical Tip

You can run a daily cron job just after 00:05 UTC to reliably capture the previous day’s totals. Monthly request totals update once per day and other metrics can lag up to an hour.

Frequently Asked Questions

This section covers frequently asked questions and topics of special interest.

What counts as a "component" in Nexus Repository?

Sonatype Nexus Repository supports many repository formats, and how Nexus Repository calculates components can differ between those formats. See our detailed documentation on how components are calculated in Nexus Repository for format-by-format information.

What counts as a "request" in Nexus Repository?

A request is any HTTP interaction to /repository*/ endpoints. This includes downloads, uploads, metadata reads, and some API browsing or searching. Expect multiple requests per single download action, especially for Docker. For full details, see our help documentation on how requests are calculated in Nexus Repository.

Are there different usage metrics available in Community Edition vs. Pro?

Nexus Repository Community Edition (CE) provides detailed usage information in the Usage Center to help you stay under 100,000 total components or 200,000 requests per day; exceeding these limits blocks adding new components until brought back under those thresholds. See our Usage Metrics documentation for details on all of the metrics available in the Usage Center.

The Usage Center in Nexus Repository Pro deployments shows a simplified set of usage metrics. However, from version 3.80.x and beyond, the licensing page provides historical usage information in its Usage tab. See the Licensing help documentation for details on how to locate historic usage information in version 3.80.x+.

Does High Availability impact usage metrics?

No, implementing HA or disaster recovery (DR) into your deployment does not increase usage metrics on its own.

Does Content Replication impact usage metrics?

Yes, content replication and regional proxies increase component count. Components are counted on both ends, reflecting the added value/footprint.

Do UAT/Test instances impact usage?

Yes, both components and requests in test environments count against the usage limits of a usage-based license in use. However, consumption should be minimal compared to production instances.