Request for Multi-Hosting Feature Update in Cloudron
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Dear Cloudron Team,
I hope this message finds you well. I am writing to inquire about the current status and future plans regarding the multi-hosting feature for Cloudron.
We have been using Cloudron for both personal and professional purposes for over a year and a half, managing a wide range of applications. Our experience has been largely positive, and Cloudron has proven to be an invaluable tool for deploying and managing our digital infrastructure.
However, as our usage continues to grow, both in terms of user numbers and data volume, we are increasingly finding the need for horizontal scalability. The ability to deploy Cloudron across multiple servers, ensuring synchronization and seamless operation across these instances, is becoming critical for us. This feature would not only help us manage the growing load but also provide a robust solution for future expansion.
In 2021, there were discussions on the forum indicating that multi-hosting was being developed and expected to be released with version 7. Since then, we have not seen any updates or releases addressing this capability. Given its importance to users like us, we are keen to know if multi-hosting is still on the roadmap and, if so, when we might expect it to be available.
The ability to scale horizontally is essential for us to consider Cloudron as a long-term, viable solution. It would significantly enhance our ability to manage a large number of users and substantial data volumes without compromising performance or reliability. We believe this feature is crucial not just for our use case, but for many others in the community facing similar challenges.
Could you please provide an update on the development of the multi-hosting feature? Is it still being planned, and do you have an estimated timeline for its release? Your insights and any additional information on this matter would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you for your continued hard work and support !
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@Dont-Worry I am experiencing similar thoughts about the potential for using Cloudron in mission-critical situations. In past years I have preferred "buying" services from larger, known organizations rather than "building" it myself. But I have been disappointed on too many occasions by these companies. The Cloudron team and community is incredible and I think my company's needs might be better served here than in other places. To achieve this goal we must also ask what "we" can do to help the Cloudron team (@girish, @nebulon ) get there. Whether money or time or both, we should be prepared to invest in our future!
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Dear @crazybrad ,
Thank you for sharing your thoughts and experiences. We completely resonate with everything you've mentioned. Just like you, we've found ourselves disappointed by larger, more established service providers in the past. Cloudron's incredible team and supportive community have indeed been a refreshing change, offering us a more personalized and efficient approach to managing our digital infrastructure.
We strongly agree that achieving our goals with Cloudron will require a collaborative effort. We are absolutely prepared to invest in our future with Cloudron, whether that means contributing constructive feedback, sharing innovative ideas, investing our time in the community, or even providing financial support.
Cloudron's team has demonstrated an exceptional level of availability and dedication to their users, something we've not experienced elsewhere. This is precisely why we initiated this discussion. We genuinely believe in Cloudron as both a short-term and long-term solution and want to be proactive in ensuring its continued growth and success.
We're committed to helping Cloudron reach its full potential because we want to continue relying on it for our evolving needs. We envision a future where Cloudron can scale horizontally to meet growing demands, and we are eager to support the team in any way possible to make that happen.
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To be doubly sure that we talk about the same thing ... Horizontal scaling or multi-host in Cloudron context is the ability to have a single dashboard for apps deployed across many servers. Note that horizontal scaling of single apps is outside the scope of Cloudron and we will probably never implement this. i.e having a single WordPress or NodeBB across multiple servers is outside the scope of Cloudron. But having WordPress on one server, NodeBB on another server and having a single dashboard to manage both (nodes) is very much in our ballpark.
Could you please provide an update on the development of the multi-hosting feature?
Currently, the goal is to have Cloudron 8 out in the coming 2-3 weeks. After that for Cloudron 9 we have a focus on having a couple of better backup strategies - one specific for hetzner storage box (rsync) and another for differential backups (maybe borg or restic or own own). There's also a bunch of new apps that have to be published in parallel. Any new feature will be worked only after these two releases.
Side note: you can always host multiple instances of Cloudron, each with it's own dashboard but a single user management via https://docs.cloudron.io/user-directory/#external-directory feature. We will move that feature shortly over to OIDC as well and atleast for the users they will get single sign on across instances. For the admins, it's not ideal, you have to remember the different dashboards domain names. We have 6 separate Cloudron installations ourselves my.<purpose>.cloudron.io . It's a bit of a hassle but works OK.
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Hello @girish ,
Thank you for your detailed response. Yes, we are indeed talking about the same thing regarding horizontal scaling or multi-hosting in the Cloudron context. The ability to have a single dashboard for managing apps deployed across multiple servers is exactly what we are looking for.
We are pleased to hear about the imminent release of Cloudron 8 and the plans for Cloudron 9, especially the focus on improved backup strategies. These updates are definitely welcome.
The solution you proposed, where we can manage applications on different servers from a single dashboard, sounds promising and could indeed be a viable long-term solution for us. This approach allows us to distribute the load manually across multiple servers while maintaining centralized management, which addresses many of our scalability concerns.
Currently, our primary Cloudron instance manages a substantial number of applications and user data. As you rightly mentioned, having multiple instances requires remembering different subdomain dashboards, which complicates user and admin management. Moving towards a solution where we can deploy applications like WordPress on one server and NodeBB on another, all while managing them from a single interface, would greatly simplify our operations.
I will review the documentation you shared on using an external user directory and look into the upcoming changes to OIDC for single sign-on across instances. While this current workaround helps, having a more integrated and seamless multi-hosting capability would be highly beneficial. This could be a short-term solution, until the real feature we've just been talking about is implemented. But we don't think it's an ideal long-term solution for us.
Having the ability to manage multiple servers from a single dashboard, as you've outlined, would provide us with the scalability and flexibility we need. We are eager to see this feature implemented and would appreciate any updates on its development timeline.
Thank you again for your continued support and for considering our feedback. We look forward to the upcoming releases and future developments.
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@Dont-Worry Just curious how many users you are supporting on one server and which application(s) do you find horizontal scaling necessary? Are you able to max out (for example) a Hetzner 16-CPU cloud server?
And if Wordpress is one of the applications you are hosting, I suggest you use a platform other than Cloudron. It is not that Cloudron isn't great. It is. But plug-in management, core updates, PHP and MySQL upgrades are all part of good hosting and there are specialty platforms with proprietary tooling that do it better than anyone else. But they are not as cost-effective as Cloudron. FYI, we have given up self-hosting as not being worth the risk of a catastrophic failure.
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@crazybrad to address your points:
We don't use WordPress on Cloudron. Our WordPress sites are hosted on dedicated servers at OVH. I mentioned WordPress earlier to align with Girish's example, but it's not part of our Cloudron setup. We don't use Cloudron for a large number of websites.
Currently, we support around 40 users who utilize about 30 different applications deployed on our Cloudron infrastructure. Many of these applications are heavily used, although they don’t consume an extraordinary amount of resources individually. However, we aim to maximize our self-hosting capabilities with Cloudron, integrating many applications into our workflow, which results in significant usage.
We plan to expand our user base and the load on each application in the coming years. For example, applications like OpenWebUI consume substantial resources when in use. Even with a single user, the resource demand is high, and this is compounded when multiple users are active simultaneously. OpenWebUI, specifically, would ideally run on a separate infrastructure designed for AI, yet remain accessible to our users without requiring new accounts or different admin panels.
Switching panels or remembering different subdomains for admin tasks complicates matters since we’ve already trained our staff on using Cloudron and each application within it. Simplifying administration and user experience is crucial for us. Just like the possibility of not being limited by the constraints of the monoserver-only self-hosting, so we can consider Cloudron as a Long-Term solution.
Additionally, when you mention having "given up self-hosting as not being worth the risk of a catastrophic failure," are you referring specifically to using WordPress with Cloudron, or does this include self-hosting in general?
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@Dont-Worry Now I appreciate your situation better. I have not tried OpenWebUI but I understand the issue.
Wordpress is the only exception to self-hosting. I would use Cloudron for almost anything else, except PHP websites which we handle differently for a specific reason.
In my opinion, best practice on Wordpress plug-in management is with tooling: backup, update plug-ins, perform pixel inspection on the most common/important web pages, and if outside limits, roll back the update. We have not found a way to do this ourselves and use a 3rd party hosting. We are also testing our own verified backup solution where a backup is restored to an off-server instance to prove that regular backups are good. Again, we have seen backups fail, but if you are relying on that to restore a broken site, you may be in big trouble.
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@crazybrad I understand your point about WordPress and the necessity of specialized tools for effective plugin management, backup, and update procedures. Your approach of using third-party hosting for WordPress and your tested backup solution makes a lot of sense, especially given the critical nature of ensuring reliable backups.
Regarding OpenWebUI, it's indeed a resource-intensive application, which is why we’re looking for ways to distribute the load more effectively while maintaining centralized management. Your insights on best practices for WordPress, especially the backup verification process, are very interesting. We’re exploring similar approaches to ensure our backups are reliable and that we can restore quickly if needed.
