Security and reliability

Your data: locked down, and always under your control.

Handing your database to someone else is a leap of faith. Here is exactly how we earn it: how we protect your data, how we keep it available and how you stay in control of it. Instead of badges and promises, here are the facts you can check yourself.

Deploy securely

Security or compliance questions? Email team@selfhost.dev.

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The right cloud for each job.

Amazon Web Services (AWS)
Managed databases

Dedicated PostgreSQL, MySQL, Redis, ClickHouse, OpenSearch and Kafka on AWS, with BYOC into your own account. Multi-AZ on all six, PITR on Postgres and MySQL.

Hetzner
Your projects

Apps on dedicated single-tenant servers, 2 to 48 vCPU, from about $0.02/hr in Europe. A fraction of hyperscaler cost.

We put each workload on the cloud that does it best and handle the ops. You just get their uptime and performance.

How we protect your data

Private by default.
Not exposed by accident.

Dedicated instances

Every managed database and every project server is an instance of its own, not a slice of a multi-tenant cluster you cannot see. No shared database surface.

Encrypted at rest, TLS by engine

Managed-instance storage is encrypted at rest on EBS with AWS KMS keys and snapshots inherit it. In transit it depends on the engine: OpenSearch always uses TLS; PostgreSQL, MySQL and ClickHouse have a TLS switch, with a certificate we issue and renew; Kafka takes TLS when a single-broker cluster is created; Redis has no TLS switch yet. Custom domains get automatic HTTPS.

Locked down by default

IP whitelisting, delete protection and public access only if you turn it on. Your database is not on the open internet by accident.

Users, roles and rotation

On PostgreSQL and MySQL, create read-only, read-write or admin users per database and rotate a password in one click. New secrets are revealed once, then never stored in plain text. Nobody shares the admin login.

Private networking

Your VPC, your security groups, your region. Managed instances live inside a private network you control, not a shared public endpoint.

Guarded AI access

Ask AI in the console never acts on its own. Talk to Database reads your PostgreSQL through a read-only account fenced to the tables and columns you approve, so rows never reach a model. The MCP server never connects to your databases directly: its credentials stay on your machine with owner-only permissions (chmod 600) and destructive operations require explicit confirmation before they run.

Built to stay up

No uptime theater.
Reliability you can point at.

Here is the machinery that keeps you online and the receipts. A Multi-AZ standby that fails over automatically on every engine, continuous archives that restore to any second on PostgreSQL and MySQL, backup policies that run on the schedule you set and alerts that reach you first. Then we publish the real, measured uptime, so you can check availability yourself instead of taking a number on faith.

+ Multi-AZ automatic failover (all engines) + Point-in-time recovery, restore to any second + Automated backups and snapshots on every engine + Read replicas on Redis + Alerts by email and Slack
Live system status Read the performance benchmarks

Your data stays yours

Your database lives in your own account.
Not locked inside ours.

The strongest security guarantee is not needing one. It is standard PostgreSQL, MySQL, Redis, ClickHouse and OpenSearch on standard AWS infrastructure, with nothing proprietary between you and the engine. Your data, your dumps, your replication. And with BYOC the instance runs inside your own AWS account, so it stays yours by default, running where it always was, whether you are with us for years or run it in your own account from day one.

  • ✓ BYOC into your own AWS account, via access keys or an IAM role
  • ✓ Standard engines, exportable with the normal tools, no lock-in
  • ✓ Free white-glove migration onto Selfhost.dev, run by a real engineer
Get a free migration What BYOC is and when it makes sense
No lock-in, by construction

Most platforms make leaving expensive on purpose. We do the opposite: prepaid credits you own, no tiers to deprecate and a database that speaks the standard wire protocol.

Even if you never opened our console again, a BYOC database keeps running in your own account, untouched. That is the point.

Pay-as-you-go either way. Build your exact bill.

Where your data lives

The full list of who touches your data.
No surprises behind the curtain.

These are the third parties that process data on our behalf so Selfhost.dev can run. This is the whole list as of 31 October 2026. We update it when a provider changes.

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

Managed database instances and their backups. Your managed PostgreSQL, MySQL, Redis, ClickHouse, OpenSearch and Kafka run here, in the region you choose, with Kafka topic data in S3. Amazon SES also sends our email.

Hetzner Cloud

Project servers, in one of six locations: Germany, Finland, the United States or Singapore.

Google

Firebase signs you in to the console and hosts it. Google Analytics measures visits to this website and the console. The website loads its fonts from Google Fonts.

Microsoft Clarity

Usage analytics on this website and in the console, including recordings of how website pages are used.

Mixpanel

Product analytics in the console.

Razorpay

Payment processing for credit top-ups. We never see or store your full card details.

Cloudflare

Hosts this website and what you send through its forms. It also serves DNS for the hostnames we create.

Sentry

Error reports from our API. Values that look like secrets are scrubbed first.

Slack

Our team’s internal alerts, such as a new sign-up or the first lines of a support ticket.

AI model providers

The third-party models behind Ask AI, Talk to Database and build detection for GitHub deploys. They receive only what our privacy policy lists, never rows from your databases.

Tawk.to

Live chat on the website (desktop only). Switched off since July 2026.

How we earn your trust

Honesty is part of the security model.

You can choose to keep your database in your own AWS account. With BYOC it runs on infrastructure you own and control and never leaves it. Most managed providers reserve that for an enterprise or custom-priced plan, the kind that starts around $250 a month and climbs from there, if they offer it at all. We offer it on every account, no enterprise tier required.

Alongside it: standard engines you can export any time, published benchmarks with the methodology and the gaps shown, measured uptime you can check on the status page and prepaid billing with no surprise invoice. When a balance reaches zero, a paying account keeps running for 5 days. Then its servers and databases are stopped and kept for 24 hours; a top-up in that time restarts them. An account that has never topped up or saved a card has its resources deleted when its balance reaches zero.

And if a compliance box is what is holding you back: we are not SOC 2 or HIPAA certified today, only because the teams we serve have not needed them yet. If yours does, that is a conversation, not a dead end. Tell us what your review requires and we can pursue it.

Deploy securely

Frequently asked questions

Is Selfhost.dev SOC 2 or HIPAA certified?
No. Selfhost.dev is not SOC 2 or HIPAA certified today and we do not claim otherwise. If your company gates vendors on those attestations, we are not there yet. Instead, we protect your data with single-tenant instances, encryption at rest, IP whitelisting, credential rotation, Multi-AZ failover on every engine, point-in-time recovery on PostgreSQL and MySQL, automated backups and BYOC so your data can stay in your own AWS account. For teams weighing the compliance question against control and cost, see our Selfhost.dev vs AWS RDS comparison.
Is my data encrypted?
Managed instances store your data at rest on encrypted EBS volumes using AWS KMS keys, so backups and snapshots are encrypted too. In transit it depends on the engine. OpenSearch accepts only TLS. On PostgreSQL, MySQL and ClickHouse you switch TLS on from the console and we issue and renew the certificate. On Kafka you choose TLS when you create a single-broker cluster. Redis has no TLS switch yet. Your managed databases also sit behind IP whitelisting and are private by default, so they are not exposed to the open internet unless you turn public access on.
Where is my data stored?
Managed databases run on AWS, in the region you pick when you create the instance. Project servers run in one of six locations: Germany (Falkenstein, Nuremberg), Finland (Helsinki), the United States (Ashburn, Hillsboro) or Singapore. You choose which one when you create the project and a location you pick is honoured or refused, never silently changed. Which of those are open depends on the machine you pick and if you would rather not choose, we place it in an available one. With BYOC, your managed database runs inside your own AWS account, so the data never leaves it.
What happens to my data if I stop using Selfhost.dev?
It is standard PostgreSQL, MySQL, Redis, ClickHouse and OpenSearch on standard AWS infrastructure, with nothing proprietary in between. You can dump, replicate and export it with the normal tools at any time. With BYOC the instance never leaves your account in the first place, so even if you stop using us, the database is still yours, running where it always was.
Who can access my database?
Databases are locked down by default: IP whitelisting, delete protection and public access only if you turn it on. On PostgreSQL and MySQL you create database users with read-only, read-write or admin roles and rotate their passwords in one click, so nobody has to share a single admin login.
Do you have a status page?
Yes. Our public status page shows real, measured uptime for the console, API and website, so you can check availability yourself rather than take a marketing number on faith.

Trust you can verify.
Not trust you take on faith.

Deploy securely

Security or compliance questions? Email team@selfhost.dev.