Stress evolution was studied in up to ~3 µm thick AlN templates, comprising ∼65 nm thick AlN nucleation layers (NLs) and thick buffer layers (BLs), grown using different growth modes and conditions by plasma-assisted molecular beam epitaxy (PA MBE) on c-Al 2 O 3 . Growth of both the NL and BL in a standard PA MBE mode at N-rich conditions (at flux ratio Al/N 2 * ∼ 0.5) led to instant generation of a relatively high tensile stress (∼1.5 GPa) which is maintained throughout the entire growth. On the contrary, NLs, grown using a migration-enhanced epitaxy (MEE), demonstrated a transition from the initial compressive stress to stress-free growth, which is usually observed in the Volmer-Weber films. Further growth of thick AlN BLs on the MEE-NLs at various Al/N 2 * ratios revealed a wide variety of stress evolution processes. The BL growth by using metal-modulated epitaxy (MME) at Me-rich conditions with Al/N 2 * ∼ 1.33 led to a gradual decrease in the initial compressive stress in the 2D AlN layers, whereas standard PA MBE growth of 3D BL at N-rich conditions (Al/N 2 * ∼ 0.92) exhibited a fast transition from the initial compressive stress to tensile stress. Moreover, we succeeded in achieving the quasi-stress-free growth of a 3.1 µm thick AlN BL using the MME growth mode at the optimum flux ratio Al/N 2 * = 1.05. These results were compared with the results of other authors and explained using a kinetic approach to description of stress evolution during PA MBE of AlN/c-Al 2 O 3 templates, taking into account several simultaneously acting competitive mechanisms of continuous generation of tensile and compressive stresses.