cloudparts

PikaPods

Managed hosting for a curated catalog of open-source web apps such as n8n, Immich, Nextcloud and Forgejo: you pick an app and its CPU, memory and storage, and PikaPods runs it as an isolated container, updates it and bills by the hour.

What it is
Software as a service (SaaS)
Type
Commercial product
Made by
Peakford Ltd
License
Proprietary
Facts checked
13 October 2026
Website

What it is

Each pod is one app from the catalog (126 apps on the list today), deployed from the image its authors publish, unmodified, as an isolated container. You choose a region (EU or US) and set CPU from 0.25 to 6 cores, memory from 0.25 to 16 GB and storage up to 1,000 GB; the smallest pod costs about $1.80 a month. Billing is prepaid credit charged per full hour, a stopped pod pays only for its storage, and every pod costs at least $1 a month. Apps that need a database get a local one per pod, PostgreSQL or MySQL/MariaDB, and the pod sits behind a proxy that handles TLS on a pikapod.net subdomain or one custom domain.

PikaPods takes over the operator’s job, not the app’s. It tests each release in staging, applies routine updates about a week after release (only stable releases at least 48 hours old) and security fixes within hours, and emails a week ahead of breaking changes. Your data stays reachable: files over SFTP, the database through an Adminer login, and nightly incremental Restic backups to an S3 bucket you own. Where it can, it shares 20% of the revenue with the app’s authors. The service is run by Peakford Ltd, a Malta company best known for the BorgBase backup service, and was launched on Hacker News in May 2022.

Why teams pick it

  • Small apps cost little: hourly billing on prepaid credit, from about $1.80 a month, with $5 of welcome credit and no card needed to sign up
  • Tested updates instead of automatic image pulls, with security fixes applied within hours
  • No lock-in: SFTP access to files, direct database access, and encrypted nightly Restic backups to your own S3, B2 or R2 bucket
  • Revenue sharing (20% where possible) gives the open-source projects you rely on some income

Watch out for

  • Only catalog apps: one HTTPS port each, an official Docker image, a self-hosting license and modest CPU and bandwidth; you can’t deploy your own code
  • No uptime SLA: historically about 99.95% a month, with app updates about twice a month and reboots for system updates every 3 to 6 months
  • No per-pod restore service: Peakford’s own server backups are best effort, so data that matters needs your own S3 backups
  • Support covers hosting only, not the apps themselves; one custom domain per pod, port 25 is blocked, and an account is capped at 10 pods and 2 TB after its first top-up (lower before)

How it fits with other technologies

Restore a pod’s nightly backup from your own bucket with Restic · bash

# Repository URL and password are shown under Pod Settings > Backups
export RESTIC_REPOSITORY=s3:https://s3.amazonaws.com/my-pod-backup-1
export RESTIC_PASSWORD=xxxx
export AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID=xxxx
export AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY=xxxx

restic snapshots            # PikaPods tags each snapshot with the app name
restic ls 1a2b3c4d          # list the files in one snapshot
restic restore 1a2b3c4d --target ./restore

# Then: create an empty pod, stop it, import the SQL dump into its database
# and copy the files back over SFTP (port 22, host <name>.pikapod.net)

See it in a real stack

No architecture uses PikaPods yet. Drop it into the playground and wire it up yourself.Open playground →
Where it came from2022–2026

Open-source web apps such as Nextcloud, Ghost or Immich are free to run, but self-hosting them takes Linux skills and ongoing security maintenance. PikaPods sets itself between that and an ad-supported cloud service: the app runs for you, but it is the open-source version and your data stays yours.

PikaPods launched in May 2022 with a post on Hacker News. Its founder described it as an app store for open-source web apps: a moderated selection that gets updates and optimizations, rather than a platform for custom code, at around $1.50 a month for a typical app. Part of the mission, the founder wrote that October, was to give open-source authors another source of income through revenue sharing. By October 2022 it ran a few thousand apps in two regions, EU and US.

Peakford, the company behind the BorgBase backup service, runs it. Today the catalog lists 126 apps, and pods come with SFTP and database access, a firewall, a custom domain and incremental backups to the customer’s own S3 storage.

Why it’s built this way

A curated catalog instead of any container
The founder wrote that PikaPods does not focus on custom apps but on a moderated selection it keeps updated; apps must use one HTTPS port, ship an official image, allow self-hosting and not compete with their authors’ own paid hosting.
Test updates before rolling them out
The FAQ says stability comes first: each release is tested in staging and must be stable for 48 hours, unlike setups that pull new container images automatically.
Share revenue with app authors
Open source needs a business model to be sustainable, the founder argued on Hacker News, so PikaPods pays the original projects a share instead of competing with them on price.
Hourly billing on prepaid credit
No subscription: you pay only for the hours a pod runs, a stopped pod costs only its storage, and unused credit doesn’t expire.

Timeline

  1. 2022

    Launched on Hacker News on 6 May

  2. 2022

    A few thousand apps running in EU and US regions by October

  3. 2026

    126 apps in the catalog, from about $1.80 a month

Sources11 · facts checked 13 October 2026

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