How to access JIRA with a community server license

[Michelle Michelle]

I have a community server license which is apparently supposed to give me access to a JIRA instance to test it out and use for a school project.  For the life of me, I can't figure out how to access it.  

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

I need to confirm what you've got here, as I'm reading between the lines and may be guessing totally the wrong thing. 

When Atlassian say "Server" in the context of one of their applications, they mean the software is downloaded and installed on a server that you (or a provider) run on your hardware.

Having a community server licence just means you can run and use a server, it does not provide one for you.

Is that the case?  You don't actually have a server instance to use yet?

[Michelle Michelle]

That makes sense then.  I was under the impression that JIRA community server license gave be access to a hosted JIRA instance.  Clearly not.  Thanks for reading between the lines and answering what many rounds with the Atlassian support folks couldn't.

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

Unfortunately, they don't do community licences for Cloud, which would give you an instance to play with :-(