Build apps
Host an app
Run a published app on its own, off its sandbox, with its data in managed databases.
Run a published app on its own, off its sandbox, with its data in managed databases.
Publishing to Hosting deploys a copy of your app that runs on its own, separate from the sandbox you build in. Your sandbox can sleep, update or be replaced, and the hosted app keeps running. When nobody’s visiting, it sleeps and costs almost nothing; the next visit wakes it in under a second.
Hosting appears in the Publish panel once an admin has set it up in Settings → Hosting (see Hosting providers), or your organization has connected its own accounts.
Nothing is created at a hosting provider while you build. Databases and machines are only made when you publish to Hosting, so an app you never host costs nothing outside its sandbox.
| Your app | Where it goes |
|---|---|
| A front end only (no server of its own) | Cloudflare, at https://<name>.<account>.workers.dev |
| An app with a server | A Fly.io machine, at https://<name>.fly.dev |
| An app with a server and a Postgres database | Fly.io, with the database on Neon |
| An app with a server and Redis | Fly.io, with Redis on Upstash |
| An app that stores files through the S3 API | Fly.io, with a Cloudflare R2 bucket |
| An app that keeps data on disk (SQLite, uploads) | Fly.io, with a volume holding that data and your App Storage |
The agent decides which of these your app is and writes it down in the project (in .onedrop/host.json), so you don’t have to. If it hasn’t, a plain Vite app (React, Vue or similar, with no server of its own) is served as a front end, and anything else runs on Fly.io. If you want to check, ask it: “is this app ready for Hosting?”
Building on a Mac? Your sandbox runs on Apple Silicon, but Fly.io machines don’t, so each deploy installs your app’s packages again for Fly.io. That adds a minute or so to building the image.
Click Publish at the top right of the workspace.
Hosted apps are public: anyone with the URL can open them. To keep an app private, publish to your domain or Tailscale instead.
The status follows the deploy: reading the app, building and packing it, setting up its services, building the image, and starting it. The first deploy of an app with a server takes a few minutes; later ones are faster.
Open Deploy #n in the panel to see the deploy’s log, and the list below it for what your app has at each provider and whether it’s in your organization’s own account.
On the first deploy, OneDrop copies your sandbox’s data into the hosted app once: its Postgres database into Neon, and its SQLite file, data folders and App Storage onto the volume. From then on the hosted data is the real data. Republish ships your latest code only and never overwrites it.
Redis is a cache, so it starts empty when hosted.
Backups. SQLite databases on the volume are backed up continuously, about every second, to their own Cloudflare R2 bucket (shown as SQLite backups in Tools → Publishing). If the volume is ever lost, a new one gets the databases back from there before the app starts. Fly also snapshots each volume daily and keeps 14 days. Postgres on Neon has Neon’s own backups.
Each app with a server runs on one machine. If it gets slow under load, pick a bigger one under Machine size in Tools → Publishing: Small (1 shared CPU, 1 GB), Medium (2 shared CPUs, 2 GB), Large (2 dedicated CPUs, 4 GB) or Extra large (4 dedicated CPUs, 8 GB). The app restarts on it within a few seconds; nothing is rebuilt. Larger machines cost more at your hosting provider, and Large and Extra large take a few seconds longer to wake after sleeping.
Apps keep their data in SQLite on the volume, which is fast and cheap but only works on one machine. When an app needs more than that, click Move to Postgres next to its SQLite database in Tools → Publishing:
The SQLite file stays on the volume afterwards, as a copy of the data from before the move.
The Publish menu has what you need to publish: the status, where it’s published, what changed since, the latest deploy’s log, and Update. Everything else about the hosted app is in Tools → Publishing (or Manage hosting in the Publish menu): earlier deploys to roll back to, Update automatically, Machine size, what the app has at each provider, Move to Postgres and Delete hosted data.
Your hosted app doesn’t change while you keep building. It only updates when you publish again, so half-finished work never reaches your visitors.
Organization owners and admins can connect the organization’s own Fly.io, Cloudflare, Neon and Upstash accounts in Settings → Organization, under Hosting. New apps are then hosted there, billed to you by the provider, instead of on OneDrop’s accounts. Each provider is separate: you can connect Neon and keep using OneDrop’s Fly.io.
Things already made stay in the account they were made in. You can’t disconnect an account while your apps still have something in it; delete their hosted data first.