GRAPHIC APPAREL SHOP
ubicloud
Organization
ubicloud
Open source alternative to AWS. Elastic compute, block storage (non replicated), firewall and load balancer, managed Postgres, K8s, AI inference, and IAM services.Introduction
In an era where cloud computing has become synonymous with a handful of tech giants, a new challenger has emerged from the open source community. Ubicloud represents a bold vision: what if we could have all the convenience and power of modern cloud services without the vendor lock-in, premium pricing, and closed-source restrictions that define today's major cloud providers?
This ambitious project, built entirely in Ruby and licensed under AGPL-3.0, aims to democratize cloud infrastructure by providing an open source alternative that runs anywhere, from your own bare metal servers to managed service offerings that cost a fraction of AWS pricing.
At its core, Ubicloud addresses a fundamental tension in modern technology infrastructure. While AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud have undeniably revolutionized how we deploy and scale applications, they've also created new problems: escalating costs, complex vendor-specific ecosystems, and the anxiety of being locked into proprietary systems.
Ubicloud's approach is refreshingly different, it's an open source cloud platform that you can inspect, modify, and run yourself, while still offering the enterprise features and reliability that businesses demand.
The Problem & The Solution
The cloud computing revolution has been a double-edged sword. On one hand, it has democratized access to enterprise-grade infrastructure, enabling startups to compete with established players and reducing the capital expenditure required to launch new services. On the other hand, it has created new forms of dependency and financial burden that many organizations struggle with today.
The numbers tell a sobering story. Companies routinely find themselves paying 3-10x more for cloud services compared to equivalent bare metal resources, yet switching providers becomes increasingly difficult as applications become deeply integrated with vendor-specific services. Network egress fees can create unexpected costs that essentially penalize companies for moving their data, while the complexity of cloud offerings has grown to include hundreds of services that can overwhelm teams trying to accomplish basic computational tasks.
Ubicloud's solution is elegantly simple yet technically sophisticated. Rather than trying to compete directly with cloud giants on their own terms, it takes a different approach: provide the essential cloud services (compute, storage, networking, databases) as open source software that can run on bare metal providers like Hetzner, Leaseweb, OVH, or even AWS Bare Metal instances. This architectural decision allows Ubicloud to offer dramatic cost savings while maintaining portability and transparency.
Why I Like It
What immediately struck me about Ubicloud is the technical maturity evident in every aspect of the project. This isn't a weekend hobby project or an academic proof-of-concept, it's a production-ready platform built by a team with deep experience in distributed systems and cloud infrastructure.
The codebase demonstrates sophisticated understanding of the challenges involved in building reliable cloud services, from the elegant state management system they call "programs" to the careful attention paid to security, encryption, and multi-tenancy.
I'm particularly impressed by their choice to build everything in Ruby using the Roda-Sequel stack. While this seems unconventional for infrastructure software to me, it demonstrates confidence in their architectural decisions and creates a codebase that's both readable and maintainable.
The comprehensive test suite, thorough documentation, and clear separation of concerns throughout the system show a level of engineering discipline that's often missing in open source infrastructure projects.
Perhaps most importantly, Ubicloud doesn't try to reinvent every wheel. They leverage proven open source technologies like Cloud Hypervisor for virtualization, SPDK for storage performance, and IPsec for networking security. This approach allows them to focus on the orchestration and user experience while standing on the shoulders of other excellent open source projects.
Key Features
Ubicloud's feature set focuses on simplicity and cost-effectiveness rather than feature proliferation. The platform currently offers elastic compute with isolated virtual machines, virtual networking with both IPv4 and IPv6 support, block storage with encryption at rest, and managed PostgreSQL databases with automatic backups and high availability options.
Virtual machines are created using Cloud Hypervisor, a modern VMM (Virtual Machine Monitor) that provides strong isolation while maintaining excellent performance. Each VM runs within Linux namespaces for additional security, and the entire system is designed to support both manual provisioning and automated scaling based on demand.
Networking in Ubicloud is built around IPsec tunneling, which creates encrypted and private network environments by default. The platform supports both public and private networking configurations, with flexible firewall rules implemented using Linux nftables.
For load balancing, they've built a system that's both simple and cost-effective, avoiding the complexity and expense of vendor-specific solutions.
The storage system deserves special mention for its practical approach to enterprise features. Using SPDK (Storage Performance Development Toolkit), Ubicloud provides virtualized block storage that's both fast and secure.
Data encryption keys are themselves encrypted, following security best practices, and the architecture is designed to support advanced features like snapshots and replication in future releases.
Under the Hood
The technical architecture of Ubicloud reveals a sophisticated understanding of distributed systems design. At its heart, the platform uses a control plane/data plane architecture that's become the standard for cloud services. The control plane, built entirely in Ruby, manages resource lifecycle, user authentication, and orchestration, while the data plane handles the actual workload execution on bare metal servers.
What makes Ubicloud particularly interesting from a technical perspective is their "programs" system, a state machine framework that manages complex, long-running operations like VM provisioning, database creation, and infrastructure updates.
Each program represents a workflow that can be paused, resumed, and recovered from failures, providing the reliability guarantees that enterprise workloads require. The code in the prog directory showcases this system beautifully, with individual programs handling everything from VM lifecycle management to PostgreSQL cluster operations.
While many infrastructure projects default to Go or Rust for performance and memory safety reasons, Ubicloud demonstrates that a well-architected Ruby application can handle the demands of cloud infrastructure management. The main application file shows extensive use of modern Ruby patterns and careful attention to security concerns like CSRF protection, content security policies, and proper session management.
Database design follows PostgreSQL best practices, with careful attention to encryption, access control, and data integrity. The project uses Sequel as an ORM, which provides both the flexibility needed for complex queries and the safety of parameterized statements.
Authentication is handled through Rodauth, a mature and security-focused authentication framework that supports multi-factor authentication, WebAuthn, and other modern security features.
For deployment and operations, Ubicloud supports both self-hosted installations and their managed service. The demo directory contains scripts and Docker configurations that make it straightforward to get a development environment running, while the comprehensive documentation in DEVELOPERS.md provides detailed guidance for contributors and operators.
Use Cases
Ubicloud's practical applications span a wide range of scenarios, from cost-conscious startups to enterprises seeking to reduce cloud vendor dependency. One of the most compelling use cases is GitHub Actions CI/CD pipelines, where Ubicloud runners can provide the same functionality as GitHub's hosted runners at roughly 10x lower cost. For organizations with significant CI/CD workloads, this alone can justify adoption of the platform.
Database workloads represent another sweet spot for Ubicloud. Their managed PostgreSQL offering provides enterprise features like automatic backups, point-in-time recovery, and high availability at costs that are significantly lower than comparable managed database services. For applications with predictable database needs, this can result in substantial cost savings without sacrificing reliability or functionality.
Development and staging environments are particularly well-suited to Ubicloud's model. Since the platform can be self-hosted, development teams can create isolated environments that exactly mirror production configurations without ongoing cloud costs. This is especially valuable for organizations that need to comply with data residency requirements or have specific security policies around development data.
The platform has already seen adoption by companies like Felt, where the CTO noted that they achieved the same CI functionality with newer CPUs at a fraction of the cost. This real-world validation demonstrates that Ubicloud isn't just a proof-of-concept, it's a viable alternative for production workloads.
Community
The Ubicloud project benefits from an active and engaged community that reflects the team's experience in building successful open source projects. The project maintains excellent communication through their GitHub Discussions, where users share experiences, ask technical questions, and propose new features. The development team is notably responsive to community feedback, with regular engagement from core maintainers on issues and pull requests.
Contributing to Ubicloud is well-documented and accessible to developers with Ruby experience. The contributor documentation is comprehensive, covering everything from local development setup to architectural patterns used throughout the codebase. The project follows modern development practices with comprehensive testing, code review requirements, and clear coding standards.
Recent community discussions and feature requests reveal an engaged user base actively deploying Ubicloud in production environments. Issues range from practical deployment questions to sophisticated feature requests like VM image snapshots and dynamic storage volume resizing. The development team's responsiveness to these requests and their transparent development process creates confidence in the platform's long-term viability.
Usage & License Terms
Ubicloud is released under the GNU Affero General Public License (AGPL) version 3.0, which has important implications for how the software can be used and distributed. The AGPL is specifically designed for network services and requires that anyone who runs a modified version of Ubicloud as a network service must make their source code modifications available to users of that service.
For most users, this licensing approach provides maximum freedom. You can download, modify, and deploy Ubicloud for your own use without restrictions. Organizations can run their own private cloud infrastructure using Ubicloud without any licensing fees or usage restrictions. The open source nature means you have complete visibility into how your infrastructure operates and can modify it to meet specific requirements.
The AGPL license primarily affects organizations that might want to offer Ubicloud as a hosted service to third parties. In such cases, any modifications to the core Ubicloud codebase would need to be shared under the same AGPL terms. This "copyleft" provision ensures that improvements to the platform benefit the entire community rather than being captured by proprietary service providers.
For organizations concerned about AGPL implications, Ubicloud offers a managed service option that provides the benefits of the platform without the need to run infrastructure internally. This approach allows users to benefit from Ubicloud's cost savings and feature set while leaving the operational complexity to the core team.
Impact Potential
By providing a viable open source alternative to major cloud providers, the Ubicloud project could fundamentally alter the competitive dynamics of the cloud computing market. When organizations have a credible exit strategy from vendor lock-in, it forces existing providers to compete more aggressively on price and features.
The technical approach pioneered by Ubicloud, running cloud services on bare metal providers, could become a new architectural pattern that other projects adopt. This "cloud abstraction layer" model provides the convenience of managed services while maintaining the cost benefits of bare metal infrastructure. As more organizations become comfortable with this approach, it could drive broader adoption of hybrid and multi-cloud strategies.
From a strategic technology perspective, Ubicloud demonstrates that sophisticated cloud infrastructure can be built and maintained by relatively small teams using modern development practices. The project's success could inspire other open source alternatives to proprietary cloud services, potentially leading to a more diverse and competitive ecosystem.
The emphasis on simplicity over feature proliferation could also influence how cloud services are designed and marketed. By focusing on the 10% of cloud services that provide 80% of the value, Ubicloud shows that complexity isn't always necessary for meeting real-world infrastructure needs.
About the Company
Ubicloud is founded by Ozgun Erdogan, Umur Cubukcu, and Daniel Farina, a team with a background in distributed systems and cloud infrastructure. Umur and Ozgun previously co-founded Citus Data, creators of the distributed PostgreSQL database that was acquired by Microsoft in 2019. Following the acquisition, they led product and engineering teams within Azure, giving them deep insight into how large-scale cloud services are built and operated.
Daniel Farina brings complementary experience from his work at Heroku, where he was instrumental in building Heroku PostgreSQL, and later at Azure and Crunchy Bridge. This combination of startup experience, enterprise cloud operations, and open source database expertise provides the team with a unique perspective on the challenges facing modern infrastructure teams.
The company has raised $16 million in seed funding and was part of Y Combinator's W24 batch, providing them with the resources and network support needed to build a sustainable business around open source infrastructure. With offices in San Francisco and Amsterdam, Ubicloud is positioned to serve both North American and European markets where data residency and regulatory compliance are increasingly important considerations.
The team's previous experience building and scaling distributed database systems is particularly relevant to the challenges of building reliable cloud infrastructure. Their approach combines the operational wisdom gained from running enterprise-grade services at scale with the agility and transparency that define the best open source projects.
Conclusion
Ubicloud represents more than just another cloud platform, it's a vision of how infrastructure services could evolve in a more open, cost-effective, and user-controlled direction. The project demonstrates that the convenience and reliability of modern cloud services don't require vendor lock-in or premium pricing. By building on proven open source technologies and focusing on essential services rather than feature proliferation, Ubicloud offers a practical alternative that addresses real pain points experienced by development teams and infrastructure operators.
The technical quality evident throughout the codebase, combined with the team's deep experience in distributed systems, provides confidence that this isn't just a promising experiment but a viable alternative for production workloads. Whether you're looking to reduce cloud costs, avoid vendor lock-in, or simply want more control over your infrastructure stack, Ubicloud deserves serious consideration.
I encourage you to explore the project repository, try out their managed service, or set up a development environment to see how modern cloud infrastructure can be built with transparency and user control as core principles. The future of cloud computing may well be open source, and Ubicloud is leading the way.
Ubicloud: Building the Open Source Alternative to AWS on Bare Metal