Terms of service
1. Who we are
fivenines.dev is run by Firebrick Labs EOOD, 31 Alexander Malinov Blvd, zh.k. Mladost 1A, Sofia 1729, Bulgaria (“we”, “us”). You can reach us at team@firebricklabs.com. The legal notice has our full details. These terms apply to everyone who uses fivenines.dev; the parts about buying apply when you buy.
2. What the tutorials are
fivenines.dev offers browser-based simulations that teach how production systems such as Apache Kafka and Redis behave. The simulations are simplified models built from public documentation, with numbers scaled to game units. They are not the real software and they leave things out; each tutorial says what it models.
They are made for learning. We do not promise that they are accurate or complete enough to base decisions about real systems on; those decisions remain yours.
Playing any tutorial needs an account. The first chapter of each tutorial is free to play; the rest needs the one-time purchase below.
3. Your account
You can sign in with Google or with a link sent to your email. An account is for one person, who must be at least 16 years old. Keep your email account secure: anyone who can read your email can sign in as you. Tell us if you think someone else has used your account.
4. Buying access
One payment of €39, including VAT, unlocks every tutorial on fivenines.dev, including tutorials added later, for as long as we run the service (see section 10). It is not a subscription and nothing renews. You need an account to buy, so the purchase can be attached to it.
You pay through Stripe’s checkout. The seller of record is Link, Stripe’s payment service (“Sold through Link”). Link takes the payment, charges and pays the VAT, sends your receipt and invoice by email, and handles questions about the payment and refunds; under its own policy it may refund a purchase within 60 days. Link’s terms govern the payment itself. Depending on where you live, Stripe may also apply a cooling-off period that local law requires.
As soon as the payment is confirmed, the tutorials unlock on your account and we email you a confirmation, which also confirms your request for immediate access (section 6). The price that applies is the one shown when you pay.
5. What you may do with it
Once you have paid, we give you a personal, non-exclusive, non-transferable right to use all tutorials through your account, for your own learning. You may not share your account, resell or pass on your access, or copy the tutorials’ content into something else. Each person who plays needs their own account and purchase.
6. Your right of withdrawal
If you are a consumer in the EU, you normally have the right to withdraw from a contract made online within 14 days, without giving a reason.
For digital content that is not supplied on a physical medium, such as access to these tutorials, that right ends when the supply begins, if you have expressly asked for it to begin before the 14 days are over and acknowledged that you thereby lose your right of withdrawal (Art. 16(m) of Directive 2011/83/EU).
We only offer immediate access, so before you can pay, the buy box asks you to tick a box (it is never ticked for you) to do exactly that: ask for access to start immediately, and acknowledge that you then lose the right of withdrawal. Access starts as soon as your payment is confirmed. We record when you ticked the box and which version of these terms applied, and we confirm both in the email we send after your purchase.
This does not affect your rights if the tutorials do not work as described (section 7), Link’s own refund policy, or a cooling-off period that the law where you live gives you and that Stripe applies at checkout.
7. If something does not work
The tutorials must work as described. Your statutory rights for digital content that does not (under the laws implementing Directive (EU) 2019/770) apply in full and are not limited by these terms: you can have it brought into conformity, and if that is impossible or does not happen within a reasonable time, a price reduction or your money back. Tell us at team@firebricklabs.com; we will fix the problem, or arrange the reduction or refund with Link.
8. Using the site fairly
Please do not:
- attack, overload or probe the service, or get around its limits, its paywall or its free lessons;
- copy or download the tutorials’ content in bulk, or access the site with bots other than search engines that follow robots.txt;
- share your account or your sign-in links;
- use the service for anything unlawful.
9. Who owns what
The tutorials, simulations, texts, graphics and code are ours or our licensors’. Open-source components are used under their own licences, listed in licenses.txt. Apache Kafka and Redis and other product names are trademarks of their owners; fivenines.dev is not affiliated with them.
10. Changes, availability and closing
We aim to keep fivenines.dev running and the tutorials working, and we fix faults within a reasonable time. We cannot promise that the site will always be available; maintenance or problems at our providers can interrupt it.
We improve the tutorials over time. Changes that keep them working or make them better need no notice. We may retire a tutorial, for example when the software it models has changed so much that it would teach the wrong things. If we retire a tutorial, or change one in a way that affects your access more than slightly, we will tell you by email at least 30 days in advance and explain why; if the change affects you more than slightly, you may end the contract free of charge within 30 days of our notice, with the refund the law gives you (Art. 19 of Directive (EU) 2019/770).
If we ever close fivenines.dev, we will email every account holder at least 90 days before it closes.
11. Liability
We are liable without limitation for damage caused intentionally or by gross negligence, for injury to life, body or health, under product liability law, and wherever the law does not allow liability to be limited.
For damage caused by slight negligence, we are liable only if we breach an obligation that is essential to the contract (one that makes it possible to perform the contract at all and that you may rely on), and then only for the damage typical of such a contract and foreseeable when it was made.
Nothing in these terms limits your rights under mandatory consumer law.
12. Ending your account
You can delete your account at any time on your account page. That ends your access, including what you paid for, and cannot be undone; on its own, it does not entitle you to a refund.
We may suspend or close an account that seriously or repeatedly breaks these terms, for example by sharing it or attacking the service, after warning you where that is reasonable.
13. Changes to these terms
We may change these terms for the future, for example when we add features or the law changes. The version is shown at the top. The version you accepted when you bought keeps applying to your purchase, unless a change is only to your benefit or required by law, or you agree to the new version. We will tell account holders about changes that affect them by email.
14. Law and courts
These terms are governed by the law of Bulgaria. If you are a consumer, this choice does not take away the protection of the mandatory law of the country where you live, and you can bring proceedings in the courts there. The contract language is English.
15. Disputes
If something goes wrong, write to us first at team@firebricklabs.com; most things can be put right quickly. We are not obliged to take part in dispute resolution proceedings before a consumer arbitration board, and we are not willing to do so.
16. Contact
Firebrick Labs EOOD
31 Alexander Malinov Blvd
zh.k. Mladost 1A, Sofia 1729
Bulgaria
team@firebricklabs.com