What are the differences among Commercial Edition, Subscription Edition, Community Edition, and Lite Edition?

Genius Vision NVR has several software editions:

Community Edition (abbreviated as CmE): Freeware non-commercial version. URL at: http://www.geniusvision.net/community.html. Details usage terms are inside the software installer.
Commercial Edition: Commercial version. URL at: http://www.geniusvision.net/
Lite Edition: Function-reduced economic version. Commercial licensing is available for purchasing. Product URL at: http://geniusvision.net/nvr-lite.html
Subscription Edition: A more versatile and cost-effective alternative to Commercial Edition. URL at: http://geniusvision.net/nvr-subscription-edition.html

Comparing Community Edition and Commercial Edition, they function almost the same and differ mostly only in packaging and licensing terms. The minor differences are listed below:

Physical location of ActiveX CABs files: For CmE, ActiveX CABs are located on our (Genius Vision) web server, while in Commercial Edition ActiveX CABs are enclosed to the embedded web server of the server installation.
License usage: Commercial Edition, if without commercial license installed, acts as a demo/trial/evaluation version. It requires persistence Internet connection to continue trial. If Internet connection interrupts, it can only run for continuous 3 days and then it will stop working. CmE, on the other hand, does not have this restriction.
License packaging: Commercial Edition, if without commercial license installed, comes with 8 channel intelligent editions with panoramic features enabled. CmE comes with 16-channel Professional Edition CmE license with 4-channel Intelligent Edition CmE features enabled→Summary of Patreon-backed Community Edition Packaging - Genius Vision.
Commercial Edition and CmE does NOT connect to each other: This point is particular important: that you cannot use Commercial Edition to connect to CmE, and vice versa. This also means that Central Management Station (CMS) function does not work between Commercial Edition and CmE.

Subscription Edition and Commercial Edition differ only in licensing mechanism and terms:

Internet connectivity: Commercial Edition requires NVR to be online all the time to check license reguarily. Subscription Edition connects to Internet only on installation or when changes are made to a subscription (add product items or make payment).
Hardware bound: Commercial Edition can only be bound (committed) to one PC. Subscription Edition allows users to reactivate several times in case hardware broken or replaced.
Duration: License for Subscription Edition has a specified date range and charges according to the days. Commercial Edition has a flat rate and license does not expire.
Subscription Edition and Commercial Edition cannot be installed on one PC: Subscription Edition and Commercial Edition have totally different licensing mechanism and cannot be used together on one NVR.
Subscription Edition and Commercial Edition connect to each other: Central Management Station (CMS) function works between Subscription Edition and Commercial Edition.

For more information about Lite Edition, you can refer to Lite official product page or Lite Edition Trial Guide. Lite Edition does not connect to Commercial Edition nor Community Edition. The license code purchased for Lite Edition and Commercial Edition is not compatible and therefore cannot be used interchangeably.

For Subscription Edition and Commercial Edition, three types of licenses are provided: Professional, Intelligent, and Panoramic Edition. Each with different level of function available but they all uses the same package.

The Commercial Edition does not have a separate formal package, as opposed to the trial edition. The only difference between formal version and trial version is that whether or not you have installed formal license.

The Subscription Edition does not have a separate formal package, as opposed to the trial edition. The only difference between formal version and trial version is that whether or not you have paid the product items.

If you are using our software in commercial context then you need to pay for it. Using Community Edition or evaluation software on commercial context is not authorized and could have serious legal implications.