DeployRuby.CloudDeployRuby.Cloud
// frameworks
RubyRailsSinatraHanamiRodaPadrinoGrapeCampingCuba
// clouds
AWSAzureGCPHerokuHatchboxUbicloudFly.ioRenderDigitalOcean
// cloud · ubicloud

Ubicloud: the open cloud, written in Ruby.

An open-source AWS replacement, built by ex-hyperscaler engineers — and (delightfully) implemented in Ruby and Rails.

Ubicloud is a genuinely new kind of cloud: open-source infrastructure you can run yourself or consume as a managed service. The control plane is Ruby. The Postgres is managed. The VMs run on bare metal in Hetzner and Leaseweb. It's the most Ruby-native cloud on this list.
Ruby
control plane language
AGPL
open-source license
Postgres · VMs · LBs · GH runners
managed services
01 / 04

Managed Postgres, done right

Ubicloud's flagship managed service is Postgres — with PITR, HA, and read replicas. It's API-compatible with typical Postgres tooling, so your Rails app doesn't know or care.
bash
# Create a Postgres cluster via the Ubicloud CLI
ubi pg create app-prod \
  --location eu-central-h1 \
  --size standard-2 \
  --storage 64 \
  --ha-type async

# Grab the URL and hand it to Rails
export DATABASE_URL=$(ubi pg show app-prod --format=url)
02 / 04

VMs for your app server

Provision a VM, drop your container on it (Kamal has first-class Ubicloud support), and point a managed load balancer at it. A 3-node Kamal setup — two web, one worker — is the reference deployment shape.
03 / 04

GitHub Actions runners

Ubicloud offers hosted GitHub Actions runners as a drop-in replacement — swap `runs-on: ubuntu-latest` for the Ubicloud runner label and your Rails CI keeps working, with the runners now on bare-metal Linux.
04 / 04

Self-host if you want to

Because Ubicloud is open source, you can run the whole control plane on your own hardware — a real escape hatch that no hyperscaler offers. Most teams start managed and never bother.

Gotchas we learned the hard way

  • !Ubicloud is younger than AWS. The ecosystem of third-party tooling is thinner — plan for a bit more DIY on observability and alerting.
  • !Regions are limited to a handful in Europe and North America. If you need Asia-Pacific coverage today, pair Ubicloud with a CDN or wait.
  • !Managed Postgres is production-grade; other managed services are earlier. Vet what you need before betting on it.
  • !AGPL matters if you fork the control plane. If you're just a consumer of the managed service, you're unaffected.

Related guides

→ guide
Framework · Rails
The majestic monolith is back, and it deploys better than ever. Kamal 2, Solid stack, Propshaft — no Node, no Redis, no Nginx if you don't want them.
→ guide
Framework · Roda
Routing trees over routing tables. Roda is what you reach for when latency is a feature.
→ guide
Framework · Sinatra
The 40-line Dockerfile framework. Perfect for internal APIs, webhooks, and 'we just need one endpoint' services.
→ guide
Cloud · AWS
The most control, the most services, the most footguns. Here's the opinionated path that keeps a Ruby app boring and stable.
→ guide
Cloud · Hatchbox
By Chris Oliver of GoRails. A managed control plane over VMs you own — Heroku ergonomics on infrastructure you control end to end.
Ready?
Ruby on the Ruby cloud

There's a certain poetry in running your Rails app on infrastructure whose control plane is also Rails — and the deployment story is honest all the way down.