Container Apps, Cloud Compute and Apps compared
Which of Coritan's three ways to run software suits a game server, a database, a website or a whole machine of your own.
In the dashboard
Coritan runs software for you in three ways, which differ in how much you control and how much Coritan does for you:
- Container Apps runs one program you pick from a catalogue, such as a Minecraft server or a PostgreSQL database, and gives it an address. Coritan installs it and keeps it running, and you manage it in the dashboard.
- Cloud Compute gives you a whole virtual machine with root access. You install and run everything on it yourself.
- Apps runs a web service you wrote, from a git repository or a container image, as identical copies in the regions you choose, behind your own domains.
Cloud servers explains the words on this page.
Side by side
Section titled Side by side| Container Apps | Cloud Compute | Apps | |
|---|---|---|---|
| What you get | A server running the software you chose | An instance: a virtual machine | An app, run as replicas |
| Software | From the Software section of the order page | Anything, on the operating system image you chose | Built from your repository, or your own image |
| How you run it | Console, file manager, SFTP and schedules in the dashboard | SSH and a console, with root access | Deployments, environment variables and domains |
| Address | A port on the machine's shared address, or a floating IP | A public IPv4 address of its own | A platform name and your custom domains |
| Files on its disk | Kept, and saved with snapshots | Kept, and saved with snapshots and backups | Not kept from one deployment to the next |
| Where it runs | One location | One location | One or more regions, with 1–5 replicas in each |
| How it is billed | A service with a plan, paid for each billing cycle or by the hour | A service with a plan, paid for each billing cycle or by the hour | No plan, invoice or credit (How Apps is billed) |
Choose Container Apps
Section titled Choose Container Apps- For a game server such as Minecraft, with a console, a file manager and plugins, and no machine to look after.
- For a database such as MariaDB, PostgreSQL, MongoDB or Redis, or a Node.js or Python app, from the catalogue.
- When you would rather use the dashboard than a command line.
A server's Databases tab also creates MariaDB databases for the plugins the server runs, on a shared host in its region (Create and manage server databases).
Choose Cloud Compute
Section titled Choose Cloud Compute- When you need root access, an operating system of your choice, or software that the Container Apps catalogue does not have.
- To run several programs on one machine and set it up your own way.
- When you are comfortable with a command line and with keeping the system up to date.
Choose Apps
Section titled Choose Apps- For a website or an API that you build yourself and keep in git, or build into a container image.
- When you want each push to deploy, and a way to roll back to an earlier version.
- When you want copies in more than one region. Keep the data in a database or in Object Storage, because a replica keeps nothing on its disk.
Using them together
Section titled Using them togetherAn app can keep its data in a database that runs on a Container Apps server, and connect to it at the server's address. A Container Apps server or an instance can sit behind a web proxy on your own domain, which serves it over HTTPS (Web proxies, origins and the WAF).