AppServer for WebApp Dev and Hosting
Easy, light-weight application server for development and deployment of containerized webapps.
Supports all languages/frameworks, runs on Linux, Windows and OSX. Idle apps scale down to zero.
What is Clace?
Clace™ is an Apache-2.0 licensed application server for web apps. Clace enables easy and secure hosting and management of multiple web apps written in any language/framework. Clace is cross-platform (Linux/Windows/OSX) and provides a GitOps workflow for managing web apps.
How does it work?
Clace implements a language/framework agnostic application server. Clace combines the functionality of a reverse proxy and a container orchestrator (using Docker or Podman) in a single lightweight binary. Clace builds images and runs containers directly from GitHub source repo.
What can it be used for?
Clace can be used during app development, handling all env setup with live reload. Apps can then be deployed on a Clace server, adding OAuth authentication. For example, Clace can be used to deploy multiple Flask/Streamlit/FastAPI apps on a server shared across a team, using GitOps for managing CI/CD.
Container management
Build and deploy containers, with Docker or Podman.
GitOps Workflow
Blue-green (staged) deployments, versioning and preview environments with no infra to manage.
Hypermedia web apps
Fast and lightweight backend driven apps, minimal frontend complexity.
No build step
Backend and frontend development with no build artifacts to manage, deploy directly from the source repo.
Scale down to zero
Apps are initialized lazily, on demand: scale down to zero automatically.
Cross-platform
Clace runs natively on Linux, Windows and OSX and works with Docker or Podman
Comparison with other tools
Open source PaaS solutions are built on top of reverse proxies (Traefik/Nginx) and work on Linux only. They support prod deployment only, not use in dev. They aim to be a simplified Kubernetes, providing pre-packaged apps, including support for deploying stateful applications like databases.
Clace is simpler because it does not aim to be a PaaS solution. Compared to other AppServers, Clace supports all languages and does not require any code changes in the app. Running in containers gives better isolation across apps. Clace is a single binary and runs natively on all platforms.
Comparison with cloud services
Google Cloud Run/AWS AppRunner allow easy deployment of containerized web apps. They run outside your infrastructure, making it difficult to talk to your existing systems. When deploying multiple small apps, cost can become a factor, especially when larger instances are required.
Clace provides a similar easy to use interface, including scale down to zero, on your own hardware. Hundred of apps can be hosted on a single Clace serve. Apps are lazy-initialized and scale down to zero when idle. Costs are fixed, there are no unexpected bills when API volume increases.
How is Clace different?
Clace provides a Cloud Run type experience on your hardware. Code and config changes are blue-green staged for deployment. Multiple apps can be updated atomically (all-or-nothing), no broken state after deployment failures.
Clace is built for the application management lifecycle across a team, not just the initial installation. Clace has OAuth support and security sand-boxing features which allow operations teams to easily manage applications through GitOps while allowing development teams to freely make code changes.