Shellius is the same software either way. The question is who runs it, and therefore who holds the certificate authority.
Where things stand
Self-hosted Shellius is available today and is the complete product under the AGPL-3.0. Shellius Cloud is in early access and is not generally available yet. See Pricing for the current state.
At a glance
| Self-hosted | Cloud (early access) | |
|---|---|---|
| Who runs it | You | YavLabs |
| Where the CA private key lives | Your infrastructure | The hosted service |
| Features | Everything | Everything |
| Cost | Free | Contact us |
| Upgrades and backups | Yours to do | Done for you |
| Browser access to private hosts | Yes, when Shellius sits inside the network | Only for hosts the hosted service can reach |
The part that matters: reachability
Browser terminals and RDP are opened by the Shellius backend. A self-hosted Shellius inside your private network can therefore reach 10.x hosts and give people browser access with no VPN.
A hosted Shellius sits on the internet. It can only open browser sessions to hosts it can reach. For private hosts, people would use the terminal client, which connects from their own machine. Read Network reachability before deciding.
Choose self-hosted if
- your hosts are on private networks and you want browser access to them,
- you are not willing to have a third party hold a CA your fleet trusts,
- you already run Docker services and have backups.
Choose cloud if
- your hosts are publicly reachable, or your team is happy using the terminal client over your existing VPN,
- you would rather not operate another stateful service.