There are several ways to handle infrastructure. Here’s an honest comparison.
Every realistic way to handle infrastructure for a non-technical founder, compared directly.
| Self-Managed (DIY) | PaaS (Heroku/Render) | Other Managed Hosting | DevOps Engineer | SocioFi Cloud | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Monthly cost | $0 (your time) | $50–500 (plus markup) | $200–1,000 (with markup) | $6K–12K salary | $149–799 (no markup) |
| Hosting markup | None | Built-in | 50–300% | None | Zero |
| Setup time | Days–weeks | Hours | Hours | Weeks (hiring) | Hours |
| Expertise needed | Very high | Low | Low | Their expertise | None |
| Knows your app | You do | Usually not | Usually not | Maybe | Built it or audited |
| Scales with you | If you learn | Limited | Depends | If they're good | Always |
| Provider choice | Full | Limited | Often locked | Depends | 5 options, you choose |
We’d rather tell you this upfront than have you sign up for something you don’t need.
If you have someone on staff whose full-time job is infrastructure, you probably don't need us. That person can manage it.
GitHub Pages or Netlify free tier is fine. You don't need managed infrastructure for a landing page or documentation site.
Vercel's managed platform handles most of what we'd do for simple Next.js apps. If it's working, there's no reason to switch.
These platforms have their place. Here’s an honest breakdown of where each fits.
When you outgrow them — and most products do — Cloud is ready. The moment you need a persistent background worker, a managed database with tuning, private networking between services, or a human who actually knows your infrastructure at 2am, PaaS platforms start showing their limits. That’s where we come in.
Transparent plans, no DevOps required, 48-hour setup. No surprises.