Building Hostimdev: yet another hosting platform

So yes, I'm building another hosting provider.
And you’re probably thinking: Why? Aren’t there already too many?

That’s exactly what I asked myself at the start.

Most existing PaaS platforms are just wrappers on top of AWS, GCP, or Azure. They inherit the same pricing structure, the same hidden fees, and the same vendor lock-in. Which means:

• You’re paying cloud rent to monopolies
• Then paying again to the middleman on top
• And still fighting with YAML, configs, and random downtime

I don’t like monopolies. And I don’t like that most side projects are forced to either:

1. Babysit a cheap VPS (until something breaks)
2. Or pay through the nose for "convenience"

I wanted a fairer option.

What I am Building

Hostim.dev is a developer-first PaaS running on EU bare metal (Hetzner in Germany).
No big cloud. No VC bloat. Just predictable, transparent features:

• Deploy from Docker, Git, or Docker Compose
• Built-in Postgres, MySQL, Redis, and Volumes (first-class, not add-ons)
• Automatic HTTPS, domains, logs, and metrics
• Per-project isolation with clear billing (no surprise traffic fees)
• A free 5-day trial + always-free small tiers for databases and storage

Basically: everything I wished existed when I was deploying side projects.

Doing It the Hard Way

This is a bootstrapped project.
No VC, no ads budget. My plan is to find my first 100 users organically – through posts like this, conversations, and feedback.

Since last month I’ve been spending 80% of my time on marketing. And I should have started way earlier. Even just getting the site indexed by Google has been a battle of patience.

And no, this isn’t an "AI wrapper." The platform uses a little AI to parse Docker Compose into deployable templates, but otherwise it’s all predictable, boring infrastructure. Which I like.

Meanwhile, I scroll past yet another "AI wrapper" startup raising $2M in seed funding and wonder: should I slap AI on the landing page too? 😅

What’s Next

I’m on the finish line before a soft launch – just waiting for German bureaucracy to do its thing. Sigh.

For now, it’s in closed beta.
I can’t take payments yet, and I don’t want to offer totally free hosting (learned the hard way that it’s a magnet for abuse).

If you want to try it out, just drop a comment, DM me, or add yourself to the waitlist – I’ll send an invite as soon as I can.

The toughest part right now is positioning.
It leans EU-heavy because we’re launching in Germany first, but the US is on the roadmap. That will take a bigger "investment" to do right.

So yeah – just sharing here. I’d love your feedback:

• Would you use a PaaS like this?
• What do you use today (VPS, PaaS, something else)?
• What would make you switch?
• Or if you don’t care about hosting at all: could you open hostim.dev and tell me if the page makes sense?

Any feedback is appreaciated. Cheers!