Bring Your Own App

How it works

1. Push or import your image. Every workspace includes a private container registry at registry.node.uk: create push credentials and docker push, or paste any public or private image reference and we copy it in server-side. Your private registry →
2. It gets scanned automatically. Images are vulnerability-scanned on arrival; tags with critical CVEs are blocked from deployment until you push a fix.
3. Fill in one form. Image, port, environment variables, volumes, healthcheck, resource tier, replicas, plus toggles for a public URL and single sign-on.
4. Right-size before you pay. Optionally run a free 20-minute load test and we pre-select the cheapest tier that handles your traffic. How right-sizing works →
5. Deploy. Your app comes up at yourapp-yourworkspace.app.node.uk with TLS, monitoring, nightly backups and hourly billing already wired in.

Simple, capped, hourly pricing

Pick a tier; that's your price ceiling. Resources are guaranteed (with burst headroom above them), billing is per hour with no contracts or commitments, and stopping the app stops the meter. Each app carries a £3.00/month base fee, included in the prices below. Prices exclude VAT.

Storage is priced per volume, on a tier you can actually see. Most platforms sell one anonymous disk class; we tell you what the hardware is:

Both tiers include nightly backups. Your registry includes 5 GB of image storage, then Standard-tier rates apply.

For comparison: 1 vCPU / 2 GB is around $25–30/month on Render, Railway or Northflank; our s2 is £19.06, on hardware we own rather than rent, with a private registry included free rather than paywalled.

Everything a catalogue app gets, pointed at your image

Custom apps aren't a side product: they ride exactly the same rails as the apps we manage ourselves:

• TLS and a real address: yourapp-yourworkspace.app.node.uk, certificate issued and renewed automatically.
• Single sign-on, one toggle: put your app behind your workspace's identity realm and only your staff get in, even if the app itself has no login of its own. Security & SSO →
• Nightly backups: apps and volumes are covered by the same backup schedules as the rest of your workspace, visible in your portal.
• Monitoring and logs: resource metrics and centralised logging from the moment the app starts.
• Real isolation: your apps run inside your private workspace, with a sandboxed runtime, private network, guaranteed resources, and internet egress off by default until you switch it on.
• UK jurisdiction: our hardware, our datacentre, one UK company under a clear Article 28 DPA. No hyperscaler in the chain.

Never pay for a tier you don't need

The reason declared-tier billing usually goes wrong is that nobody knows what tier to declare. So we measure it: before you deploy, we run your exact spec in a temporary sandbox, drive a realistic traffic profile at it for about 20 minutes, and read what it actually used. The form pre-selects the cheapest tier that fits, with the evidence shown. It's free, once per app per day.

No other platform we know of does this. AWS Compute Optimizer needs two weeks of live production data; we tell you before you've spent a penny. How right-sizing works →

Honest limits

We'd rather tell you now than have you find out mid-migration: today we deploy container images, one container per app, up to 3 replicas, with volumes up to 1 TB each. Building from a git repo, custom domains, TCP services and autoscaling are roadmap, not product. If your workload doesn't fit that shape yet, tell us: it's a two-engineer company and the roadmap genuinely bends toward what customers ask for.

Frequently asked questions

What exactly do I get when I deploy a custom app?

Your container running inside your private workspace on UK-owned hardware, with a TLS-secured public address (yourapp-yourworkspace.app.node.uk), optional single sign-on in front, persistent volumes on the storage tier you choose, nightly backups, monitoring, log shipping and guaranteed resources. Everything our catalogue apps get, pointed at your image.

How does hourly billing work?

You pick a resource tier and pay for the hours the app runs, at the tier price divided by 730. Stop the app and the meter stops. The tier is also the cap: resources are guaranteed at the tier you picked and billing never rises above it, so there are no surprise usage charges at the end of the month.

What does it cost to run a typical small service?

A 0.5 vCPU / 1 GB service is £11.03 a month (about 1.5p an hour) including the £3 monthly base fee, plus storage at £0.08 or £0.20 per GB-month if you attach volumes. A 1 vCPU / 2 GB service is £19.06 a month. Prices exclude VAT.

Do I need Kubernetes or DevOps experience?

No. If you can build a Docker image and push it (or just give us the name of a public image), the portal handles the rest. You fill in a short form: image, port, environment variables, volumes, healthcheck, tier. We run the orchestration, networking, certificates and backups.

What kinds of apps can I run?

Anything that runs as a single Linux container listening on a port: internal tools, APIs, web apps, dashboards, schedulers, off-the-shelf open source software we don't carry in the catalogue. Apps run sandboxed by default. Multi-container apps aren't supported yet: each container deploys as its own app, and apps inside your workspace can talk to each other privately.

Can my app have a database?

Yes, two ways: attach persistent volumes to your app and run the database as its own custom app inside your workspace (a Postgres or Redis image deploys in the same form), or use volumes directly for file-based storage. Traffic between apps in your workspace stays on your private network.

What happens if my container has security vulnerabilities?

Every image is vulnerability-scanned the moment it lands in your registry. Tags with critical CVEs are blocked from deployment until you push a patched build; the portal shows you the scan result per tag, so you find out before deploy, not after an incident.

What's not supported yet?

We deploy images, not source code: there's no git-push-to-build yet. Custom domains, TCP/UDP services, autoscaling and multi-container pods are also on the roadmap rather than live today. If one of those is a blocker, talk to us; roadmap order is largely driven by what customers ask for.

Talk to us about running your app.

Tell us what you're running and an engineer, not a sales team, will tell you honestly whether it fits, what tier it needs and what it will cost.

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