Ubicloud: The Open‑Source Cloud You Can Run Anywhere (A Real Alternative to AWS, Azure, and GCP)

What if you could get the convenience of the cloud without the lock‑in, markup, or mystery? That’s the promise of Ubicloud—an open source cloud that runs on bare metal providers like Hetzner, Leaseweb, and AWS Bare Metal. Think of it like Linux for cloud infrastructure: open, portable, affordable, and powerful.

If you’ve ever watched your cloud bill creep up, worried about proprietary lock‑in, or wished for more control over your stack, you’re not alone. Many teams want the elasticity of a public cloud and the freedom of owning their infrastructure. Ubicloud brings those worlds together—either as a zero‑install managed platform or as a build‑your‑own cloud you can run anywhere.

In this guide, we’ll unpack what Ubicloud is, why it matters, how it works, who it’s for, and how to get started fast. We’ll also cover how it compares to OpenStack, what the architecture looks like, and where the roadmap is headed.

Let’s dive in.

What Is Ubicloud? An Open Source IaaS Cloud That Runs Anywhere

Ubicloud is an open source infrastructure‑as‑a‑service (IaaS) platform designed to “cloudify” bare metal Linux servers. You can use it in two ways:

Managed platform: Use Ubicloud right away without installing anything. You get the benefits of underlying providers (like pricing and global locations) while Ubicloud handles orchestration, security, and convenience for you. Start here: https://console.ubicloud.com
Build your own cloud: Run Ubicloud’s control plane, connect it to bare metal instances, and provision VMs, networking, and storage on your own. You can use providers like Hetzner, Leaseweb, or AWS EC2 Bare Metal. This approach gives you maximum portability and control.

Here’s why that matters: public clouds are closed source and often come with a premium on compute, storage, and network. With Ubicloud, you keep the cloud experience—elastic compute, networking, and block storage—while cutting costs and avoiding vendor lock‑in.

Why Choose Ubicloud Over Traditional Public Clouds?

Public clouds like AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud made deploying apps vastly easier. But they also created new pain points for teams who care about cost, control, and portability.

Ubicloud offers a compelling path forward:

Open source and portable. Run it anywhere you have bare metal Linux hosts. You’re never locked in.
Lower cost. Ubicloud’s managed cloud is roughly 3x cheaper than equivalent AWS services today. Plus, when you run it yourself, you benefit directly from bare metal pricing.
Familiar cloud UX. You get the convenience of a cloud console, API‑driven provisioning, virtual networking, and more—without proprietary constraints.
Opinionated simplicity. Ubicloud aims to implement the 10% of cloud services that power 80% of workloads. Less sprawl. Less complexity.
Built for multi‑tenancy. Encryption at rest and in transit, isolated networking, and fine‑grained access control are built in.
Developer‑first. Clear quick starts, fast feedback loops, and a roadmap geared toward the services teams actually use.

If you’ve ever thought “I wish I could get the benefits of AWS without the lock‑in,” Ubicloud is worth a serious look.

Who Is Ubicloud For Today?

Ubicloud is production‑minded, developer‑friendly, and practical. It shines in several real‑world scenarios:

Ephemeral compute for CI/CD and testing

Run short‑lived jobs, build pipelines, and high‑CPU or high‑memory tests without paying a public cloud premium.
Ubicloud is integrating with GitHub Actions, so you can plug ephemeral compute into your workflows.
The result: faster iterations and lower bills.

Simple, portable app deployments with Kamal

If you like deploying with Kamal (formerly MRSK), Ubicloud’s control plane is moving to Kamal and aims to offer open, portable services for Kamal’s dependencies.
Expect a smooth developer experience and fewer moving pieces.

Bring your own bare metal for control, compliance, or locality

Already have hardware in a colo, lab, or private facility? Or prefer providers like Hetzner or Leaseweb? Use Ubicloud to turn those machines into a cloud you control.
Perfect for teams with strict compliance, data locality, or security requirements.

How Ubicloud Works: Architecture Overview

Ubicloud follows a proven public‑cloud pattern: a control plane orchestrates a data plane built on established open source components. This provides a clean separation of concerns and makes the system both flexible and secure.

Control plane

A Ruby application backed by Postgres.
Web stack: Roda for HTTP, Sequel for database access, Rodauth for authentication.
Communicates with data plane servers over SSH using net‑ssh.
Tested with RSpec.
Cloud console UI uses Tailwind CSS with Tailwind UI components and a touch of jQuery for interactivity.

In short: a modern, lean control plane with a pragmatic Ruby/Postgres backbone.

Elastic compute (VMs)

Ubicloud talks to Linux bare metal servers over SSH.
Virtualization is powered by Cloud Hypervisor, a lightweight, security‑focused VMM.
Each VMM instance runs inside Linux namespaces for added isolation.

Why that matters: you get efficient virtualization, strong isolation, and the ability to run on a wide range of hardware.

Virtual networking

Encrypted, private networking between systems via IPsec.
Dual‑stack IPv4 and IPv6 support, with both public and private networks.
Customer VMs are isolated in separate network namespaces.
Firewalls and load balancers powered by Linux nftables.

This provides a secure, sane default network model similar to major clouds—without the black box.

Block storage

Virtualized block storage uses SPDK for high‑performance, user‑space I/O.
Designed for enterprise features like snapshots and replication as the platform evolves.
Follows security best practices, including encrypting the data encryption key itself.

You get fast storage today and a path to richer features tomorrow.

Attribute‑Based Access Control (ABAC)

Fine‑grained access via ABAC: define attributes, roles, and permissions to control who can do what.
For background, see NIST’s guide to ABAC: NIST SP 800‑162.

Security isn’t bolted on later—it’s there from the start.

Quick Start: Your First 10 Minutes with Ubicloud

You can get going in minutes—either with the managed platform (no install) or by building your own cloud on a provider like Hetzner.

Option A: Use the managed platform (fastest path)

Go to https://console.ubicloud.com
Create an account and select a region/provider.
Provision your first VM, attach storage, and set up networking—all from the console.
You’ll get the provider’s location and pricing benefits, with Ubicloud doing the heavy lifting.

This is the best way to try Ubicloud without touching infrastructure.

Option B: Build your own cloud on Hetzner (or another bare metal provider)

If you want full control or need to run in your own environments, spin up the Ubicloud control plane and cloudify your servers:

1) Prepare your environment – Lease one or more bare metal instances, for example from Hetzner (their Server Auction is a great place to start). – Ensure you have Docker and docker‑compose installed on your workstation.

2) Start the control plane locally – Clone the repo: git clone https://github.com/ubicloud/ubicloud – Generate demo secrets: ./demo/generate_env – Launch services (db migrator, app, Postgres): docker-compose -f demo/docker-compose.yml up – Open the cloud console at http://localhost:3000

3) Connect your leased instances – Update the .env file with your provider credentials: – HETZNER_USER – HETZNER_PASSWORD – HETZNER_SSH_PUBLIC_KEY – HETZNER_SSH_PRIVATE_KEY – For each instance, run: docker exec -it ubicloud-app ./demo/cloudify_server and provide its hostname/IP and provider. – After this, you can provision VMs and other resources on those nodes via the Ubicloud console.

4) Networking note on IPv6 – Ubicloud assigns IPv6 addresses to new VMs by default. If your ISP doesn’t support IPv6, you have options: – Use a VPN that supports IPv6 like Mullvad. – Use a tunnel broker like Hurricane Electric. – Or lease IPv4 addresses from your provider and add them to the control plane. – If you’re new to IPv6, this primer helps: What is IPv6?

That’s it. You now have an open source cloud you can expand as needed.

Ubicloud vs. OpenStack: Same Goal, Different Approach

OpenStack is a landmark open source cloud project. Ubicloud shares the vision—open clouds for everyone—but takes a different path:

Managed vs. boxed. Ubicloud is available as a managed service. You can start in minutes, not weeks, and still self‑host when you want to.
Developer‑first. Ubicloud targets developers early to iterate quickly and ship the six most important services to GA as soon as possible. OpenStack remains focused on a broader set of cloud features, often used for three core services in practice.
Opinionated simplicity. OpenStack supports many interchangeable backends (multiple hypervisors, S3 implementations, block storage layers). That flexibility is powerful but also complex. Ubicloud is intentionally opinionated to reduce complexity and speed up getting to value.

If you’ve bounced off OpenStack’s complexity but still want an open cloud, Ubicloud’s streamlined path may fit better.

For context on OpenStack: openstack.org

Real‑World Cost and Performance: What to Expect

This is where many teams lean in. With Ubicloud, you get public‑cloud convenience and bare‑metal economics:

Managed Ubicloud is roughly 3x cheaper than equivalent AWS today for many workloads. You benefit from underlying provider pricing and fewer layers of markup.
When you self‑host, you capture even more value directly from providers like Hetzner and Leaseweb—or from your own hardware.
You’re in control of performance. Choose the CPU, memory, and storage type you need. No black boxes.

Two practical tips: – Right‑size early. For ephemeral workloads, use small VMs by default and scale up only when needed. Ubicloud makes it easy to spin up and tear down cleanly. – Keep data transfer in mind. Even with lower compute/storage costs, plan for network traffic between services and regions.

Security and Isolation by Design

Security isn’t an afterthought with Ubicloud. It’s part of the architecture:

Encryption everywhere. Data is encrypted at rest and in transit. Even the data encryption keys are encrypted.
Strong isolation. Each customer’s VMs run in isolated network namespaces, and the VMM runs in separate Linux namespaces.
Private networking. IPsec establishes secure, private tunnels between components by default.
Fine‑grained access. ABAC lets you tailor permissions to teams, services, and environments.

The result: a secure, multi‑tenant foundation suitable for both startups and enterprises.

The Tech Stack Behind the Console

Ubicloud’s control plane and console favor clarity and reliability:

Runtime and persistence: Ruby + Postgres
Web: Roda, Sequel, Rodauth
Frontend: Tailwind CSS + Tailwind UI, jQuery
Infrastructure comms: net‑ssh
Tests: RSpec
Virtualization: Cloud Hypervisor
Networking: IPsec, nftables
Storage: SPDK

If you want to hack on the codebase, any method of getting Ruby and Postgres set up works. The team often uses mise for dev environment management. You can browse the source here: github.com/ubicloud/ubicloud

For code Q&A, Greptile indexes the Ubicloud repo so you can ask questions about the implementation.

Roadmap: What’s Next

Ubicloud is evolving fast. On the near‑term roadmap: – Managed Kubernetes or a managed metrics/monitoring service – Continued improvements to storage features like snapshots and replication – Deeper integrations for developer workflows (e.g., CI/CD)

If you have a workload that needs a specific cloud service, the team is actively collecting feedback in the Community Forum. Your input will shape what ships next.

Practical Use Cases You Can Run Today

To make this concrete, here are a few patterns you can implement right now with Ubicloud.

Cost‑efficient CI runners. Point your CI system to Ubicloud to provision ephemeral runners. Ideal for performance tests or matrix builds that require high‑mem/high‑CPU instances, without long‑term commitments.
Portable web apps with Kamal. Ship apps via Kamal onto Ubicloud VMs. Keep your deployment story simple and your stack easy to move.
Hybrid edge + core. Run compute near users (e.g., in European DCs via Hetzner or Leaseweb), while keeping heavier storage in a central region. Ubicloud’s virtual networking makes secure, private connectivity straightforward.
Regulated environments. When compliance or data locality requires specific providers or your own hardware, use Ubicloud to deliver a cloud experience without leaving your compliance boundary.

Team Pedigree and Trust

Ubicloud’s founding team has deep experience building cloud platforms: – Veterans of Microsoft Azure, with prior roles at Amazon and Heroku – Co‑founders and early team at Citus Data, acquired by Microsoft

That background shows up in the architecture: a pragmatic control plane, strong defaults for multi‑tenancy, and a focus on developer experience.

Frequently Asked Questions

How is Ubicloud different from OpenStack? – Ubicloud offers a managed service so you can start in minutes, not weeks. It’s opinionated to reduce complexity and is focused on the small set of services most teams actually use. For many, that translates into faster time‑to‑value and lower ops overhead. Learn more about OpenStack at openstack.org.

Where can I run Ubicloud? – On bare metal from providers like Hetzner, Leaseweb, and AWS EC2 Bare Metal. You can also run it on your own machines.

Do I need IPv6 to use Ubicloud? – Ubicloud assigns IPv6 to new VMs by default. If your ISP doesn’t support IPv6, use a VPN that does (e.g., Mullvad) or a tunnel broker like Hurricane Electric. You can also lease IPv4 from your provider and add it to your control plane.

Can I run Kubernetes on Ubicloud? – Yes, you can run Kubernetes clusters on Ubicloud VMs today. A managed Kubernetes service is also under consideration on the roadmap.

How secure is Ubicloud? – Ubicloud uses IPsec for encrypted networking, Linux namespaces for isolation, ABAC for fine‑grained access, and encrypts data at rest (including encrypting the data encryption key). It follows established cloud patterns for multi‑tenant security.

What virtualization tech does Ubicloud use? – Cloud Hypervisor, a lightweight, secure VMM. Each instance runs in Linux namespaces for additional isolation.

Does Ubicloud support snapshots and replication? – Storage is built on SPDK, which enables enterprise features such as snapshots and replication. These are on the roadmap as the platform matures.

How does pricing compare to AWS? – Ubicloud’s managed platform is roughly 3x cheaper than comparable AWS services for many workloads. When you self‑host, you benefit directly from bare metal pricing. Exact costs depend on your provider, region, and usage patterns.

How do I get started quickly? – Easiest path: use the managed platform at https://console.ubicloud.com – Build‑your‑own path: run the control plane locally with Docker, connect leased instances (e.g., from Hetzner), and start provisioning VMs via the Ubicloud console.

Who is behind Ubicloud? – The founding team previously built at Microsoft Azure, Amazon, and Heroku, and co‑founded Citus Data. They’re building Ubicloud as an open, developer‑friendly cloud you can run anywhere.

Can I contribute or ask implementation questions? – Yes. The source is open at github.com/ubicloud/ubicloud. For deep code questions, try Greptile, which indexes the repo. Community feedback is welcome in the forum.

The Bottom Line

Ubicloud gives you the best of both worlds: the convenience of a modern cloud and the freedom of open source. Run it as a managed service for speed, or build your own cloud on bare metal for control and cost savings. With a lean, opinionated architecture—and a roadmap focused on what developers actually use—Ubicloud is a credible alternative to closed, high‑markup clouds.

Actionable next step: try the managed console at https://console.ubicloud.com or explore the code at github.com/ubicloud/ubicloud. If this resonates, subscribe to updates or join the community conversation—your input will help shape the next generation of open cloud infrastructure.

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Ubicloud: The Open‑Source Cloud You Can Run Anywhere (A Real Alternative to AWS, Azure, and GCP)

What Is Ubicloud? An Open Source IaaS Cloud That Runs Anywhere

Why Choose Ubicloud Over Traditional Public Clouds?