I deliberately did NOT make my whole product self-hostable — kept the licensing layer in my cloud. here's the reasoning
Shipped self-hosting recently and made a call that goes against the open-source grain, so i want to think it through out loud.
the obvious move with self-hosting is "let them run everything." full air-gap, nothing depends on you, the purists are happy. and i get the appeal — i build infra, i'm one of those people who wants to own my whole stack.
but i didn't do that. i split it. the customer's data and backend run entirely on their infra — their database, their servers, their box. but the central layer that handles licensing, org management, and the keys stays in my cloud, managed by me. on purpose.
the reasoning: that central piece IS the business. it's the licensing and control plane. if i hand it over fully self-hostable, i've basically shipped the keys to my own product — anyone can run unlimited copies, licensing means nothing, and the thing i'd charge for evaporates. you can't open-source your own cash register.
so the line i drew: your data lives with you (the part that actually matters for lock-in and sovereignty), the licensing layer stays with me (the part that keeps this a business). data ownership without giving away the store.
the tension i keep feeling: the self-hosting hardliners will say "then it's not real self-hosting." and technically they're right — there's still a dependency on me. i got told exactly that, bluntly, and i don't have a clean rebuttal except "correct, this isn't air-gap self-hosting, it's data-sovereignty self-hosting, and those are different products for different people."
so the honest question for the room:
- Where's the line for you between "self-hostable enough to trust" and "not really self-hosted"? does data-on-your-infra count, or does ANY dependency disqualify it?
- For anyone selling a self-hostable / open-core product — how did you decide what to keep proprietary vs give away? did you ever give away too much and regret it?
- Is "you can't open-source your cash register" a real principle or a cop-out i'm telling myself?
