What you can build on Aloof
Reference builds we tested ourselves, with the plans and features each one uses.
These are reference architectures we built and tested ourselves. They're not customer stories, and no company names, logos or metrics are implied.
SaaS API with a worker
FastAPI or Rails web tier, a queue worker process group, managed Postgres, nightly cron cleanup.
web: shared-1x-512mb, autoscale 1–3worker: shared-1x-256mb, always onpg-basicattached over the private network[[cron]]0 3 * * *cleanup
Next.js frontend + private API
Public Next.js app that calls a private API by name. The API has no public route.
shop(Next.js), public, custom domainshop-apireached ashttp://shop-api.internal:8080- Preview app per pull request via the GitHub App
Webhook receiver that sleeps
A small service that handles Stripe/GitHub webhooks and costs cents a month because it sleeps between events.
- shared-1x-256mb,
min_machines_running = 0 - Cold start on first event, then warm for the idle window
- Secrets stored encrypted, write-only
AI agent-operated backend
An assistant connected over MCP deploys, scales and reads logs, using a deploy token scoped to one app.
- Remote MCP at
mcp.aloof.siwith OAuth - Deploy token limited to one app, 30-day expiry
- Every exec/restore/secret change in the audit log
Stateful service with backups
A service with a volume (single writer), plus Postgres with off-site encrypted backups and a tested restore path.
- Volume mounted at
/data, snapshots on demand - Daily off-site copies to Helsinki, weekly test restore
- Restore with
aloof pg offsite-restore
Scheduled jobs only
No web tier at all: cron machines that run a report or sync and exit, billed per second while they run.
[[cron]]entries in aloof.toml- Runs on the private network with the app's env
- Exit codes and output kept per run