The Windows Server licence is the price everyone quotes. The CALs for every user are the price that actually decides. Here is the full picture for a small office, with the maths shown loosely and honestly.
This comparison is usually done wrong: a Synology NAS price placed next to a Windows Server licence price, with the Client Access Licences quietly missing. Windows Server licensing charges for the server and for the people or devices connecting to it. The Synology package charges nothing. This page does the comparison fairly for the 10-25 seat office both products target.
Budget three lines, not one. The server licence: Windows Server Standard, licensed by cores with a minimum count - commonly around the thousand-dollar mark for a small server, before you switch anything on. The CALs: every user (or device) needs a Client Access Licence - priced per head, so a 15-person office buys 15 of them, and buys more as it grows. The hardware: a real server or a decent PC to run it on, plus backup. None of this is unreasonable - it funds a more capable platform - but the honest total for a small office lands at several times the licence sticker. Always confirm current figures with Microsoft's pricing or a licensing reseller; they change, and this page deliberately quotes ranges, not a price list.
The package: zero. Directory Server is free on supported models, with no per-user or per-device charge as you add staff. The hardware: if the office already owns a supported Plus-series NAS for files, the marginal cost of the domain is literally nothing. If buying fresh, the NAS price is a one-time hardware cost that also covers the file-server job the office needed anyway. The hidden line: your admin time and the platform limits covered in this series - the cost is capability, not cash.
Take a 15-person office with no server today. Synology route: one Plus-series NAS (which the office wanted for files regardless) - domain cost effectively the NAS alone. Windows route: server hardware, the Server licence, and 15 user CALs - a total commonly in the low thousands of dollars before backup and setup time. At 25 seats the CAL line grows with headcount while the Synology line does not move at all. That scaling difference - not the headline licence - is why small offices land on the NAS.
The Windows premium is not waste. It buys the higher functional levels, PowerShell automation, trusts and multi-domain growth, Microsoft's cloud directory tooling path, vendor support contracts, and no capability argument with future software. An office expecting to hire an IT admin, merge with another company, or live inside Microsoft 365's advanced identity features is buying real headroom. The Synology wins on cost for the office whose needs are logins, policy and files - and knows it.
Count every seat, price both routes fully (licence plus CALs plus hardware versus NAS), then compare against your honest three-year needs. If the requirement list stays at accounts, Group Policy and file sharing, the Synology route returns the difference as cash you can spend on backup and a second drive set - which, for most small offices, buys more real-world safety than the bigger platform would.
Watch the video's free setup with these numbers in mind - the demo you see is the whole Synology route, licence cost zero.
Watch Full VideoCorrect. Synology Directory Server has no per-user or per-device access licences. You buy the NAS hardware once; adding users and computers to the domain costs nothing in licensing.
Because the real price is a bundle - server licence by core count, plus CALs per user or device, plus edition choice. Any quote that shows only the server licence is incomplete; ask for the CAL line explicitly before comparing.
There is no fixed number, but the trigger is usually capability, not cost per seat: needing trusts, multiple domains, heavy automation, or Microsoft's cloud identity tooling. Many offices feel it somewhere beyond a few dozen seats or a second site - the cost page and the gap-list page in this series frame the decision.