Hosting and costs

Runs in your cloud. From about $14 a month.

Caelo is free software. You run it in your own Google Cloud account or on your own server, so the bill, the data and the keys stay with you.

QuickstartInstall guides

Options

Three ways to run it today.

Every option has the same shape: static pages on a CDN, the admin behind a login, a small gateway for visitor actions, the database on a private network. One install runs one site. Several sites mean several installs, because there is no multi-site mode yet.

From about $14 a month · available

Google Cloud with Firebase Hosting

Cloud Run for the admin and the gateway, Cloud SQL for the database, Firebase Hosting with its own CDN for the public site. The lowest-cost way to run Caelo in production. The $14 is a floor, before AI and traffic.

  • Cloud Run
  • Cloud SQL
  • Firebase Hosting
  • Identity-Aware Proxy

About $33 a month · available

Google Cloud

The same core with a load balancer, Cloud CDN and Cloud Armor in front of the public gateway. Choose it when you want Google's web application firewall.

  • Cloud Run
  • Cloud SQL
  • Cloud CDN
  • Load balancer
  • Cloud Armor

Your server · available

Self-hosted

Docker Compose on one Linux server: Postgres, Caddy with automatic TLS, backups of the database and your files in one archive, and an update agent. You run the machine, Caelo runs on it.

  • Docker Compose
  • Postgres
  • Caddy

Planned

AWS and Azure

Planned with the same architecture as Google Cloud. The installer does not support them yet.

    Estimate

    Where the $14 comes from.

    These are the installer's own list prices for europe-west1 with light traffic. Other regions and more traffic cost more. The installer adds up your actual configuration and shows the total before anything is billed. AI comes on top and runs on your own API key: our automated test, which builds a small branded site and edits it in 14 scenarios, typically costs a few dollars a run. To build a large site or move one with many pages, we recommend your own agent through the Power-MCP, on a plan you already pay for.

    AI costs
    DatabaseCloud SQL Postgres, smallest tier, no high availability: about $9.50.
    AdminCloud Run, scales to zero when nobody edits: about $1.
    GatewayCloud Run for visitor forms and comments, scales to zero: about $1.
    Quality checkLighthouse on each Stage, a few times a day: about $1.
    StorageCloud Storage for media: about $1. Firebase Hosting itself: $0 at this size.
    Google Cloud onlyLoad balancer about $18, Cloud CDN about $1. That is the difference to the Firebase variant.

    Google Cloud

    One command, then a setup link.

    Start the installer from your terminal or from Cloud Shell. It does the cloud work for you and stops before anything costs money.

    Install on Google Cloud
    Checksyour Google Cloud login, project and billing account.
    Showsthe monthly cost line by line and asks once before anything is billed.
    Verifiesthe package's npm provenance and the signed release manifest.
    Buildseverything as a job in your own project. Closing the tab does not stop it.
    Hands overa one-time setup link, valid for 24 hours, where you set the owner password.

    Commands

    Start it, keep it current.

    The same package installs and maintains Caelo. Updates are signed releases, never a rebuild on your machine.

    $ bunx @caelo-cms/provisioning@latest --provider gcp-firebase
# or --provider gcp, or start it with the Cloud Shell button
    $ bunx @caelo-cms/provisioning@latest init --provider self-hosted \
    --domain example.com --owner-email you@example.com
# self-hosted: run it on your server
    UpgradeChecks the signature, backs up first, rolls back on a failed health check.
    Backup and restoreGoogle Cloud: nightly database backups kept for 7 days, an extra backup before every upgrade, and uploaded media is versioned. To restore the database, Caelo prints the gcloud command for you. Self-hosted: one command backs up the databases, the published site and your media, and one command restores them.
    In the adminSettings, Caelo updates shows which version runs and what is new.

    Start

    Your site, your account, your keys.

    The quickstart walks you from the first command to your first published page.

    QuickstartMaintenance