hostit

hostit is a tiny self-hosted platform for small web apps, built to be driven by AI agents (or humans) over SSH and a REST API. Each app runs in its own container with its own subdomain and an automatic HTTPS certificate. The whole thing is a handful of small Go binaries, and it runs my (and my kids’) little apps – including this website.

hostit is free to run, but not currently open source: the binaries below are free to download and use; the source is not public right now.

Download

Latest release: v0.41.0 (Linux, amd64). Older versions live in the archive.

• hostit-control (13 MB) – the control plane: registry, REST API, and web UI. Start here.
• hostit-node (19 MB) – the per-machine app runtime that builds and runs the containers. Needs a container runtime (podman) on the box.
• hostit-proxy (5.4 MB) – the front proxy: TLS termination and per-subdomain routing.

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Install

A single box can run all three. Install the node package after its container runtime is in place, then the control and proxy packages:

sudo apt-get install -y podman
sudo dpkg -i hostit-node_0.41.0_linux_amd64.deb
sudo dpkg -i hostit-control_0.41.0_linux_amd64.deb hostit-proxy_0.41.0_linux_amd64.deb

Each package installs a systemd service (hostit-control, hostit-node, hostit-proxy). Configure them under /etc/hostit/, then point a wildcard DNS record (*.apps.example.com) at the box so every app gets its own subdomain.

What you get

• One app, one container, one subdomain, one certificate – no per-app plumbing.
• Apps are btrfs subvolumes cloned from a shared base image, so a new app is nearly free and snapshots are cheap.
• A built-in assistant: describe an app in plain language and it writes, deploys, and iterates on it in place.
• Conversations: standalone chats with the assistant that cost almost nothing when idle, and convert into a real hosted app the moment they outgrow a chat.
• Driven entirely over SSH and a REST API, so agents are first-class operators, not an afterthought.