LaunchPad gives you Heroku-level simplicity on Hetzner Cloud. One-click deploys, self-hosted databases, automated backups — up to 70–90% less than Heroku.
Same reliability. A fraction of the cost — priced in Rand.
Illustrative comparison for a single small app. Rand figures convert listed USD/EUR prices at roughly R16.3/$ and R18.9/€ (rates and provider prices checked June 2026) and exclude 15% South African VAT. Your real bill depends on app size, traffic, region, and add-ons (extra servers, larger plans, more backup storage). LaunchPad's own subscription is shown separately; Hetzner and Backblaze bill you directly with no LaunchPad markup. This basket works out to about 63% less; larger Heroku setups (more dynos, bigger Postgres plans) commonly save up to 70–90%.
Heroku-level developer experience. Infrastructure you control.
Powered by Kamal — push your code and LaunchPad handles the rest. Zero-downtime rolling deployments, every time.
Provision and manage PostgreSQL databases directly on your Hetzner servers. No separate database bill.
Scheduled pg_dump backups uploaded to Backblaze B2. S3-compatible, affordable, and automatic before every deploy.
Restore your database to any backup. Our safe-restore strategy brings up a copy and verifies it before switching over, so a bad restore can't corrupt production. (A restore rolls back to the backup's point in time.)
Health checks on every server. Know instantly when something is wrong before your users do.
A dashboard you actually want to look at. Full dark mode support with system preference detection.
Three steps from sign-up to your first deployment.
Paste in your Hetzner Cloud API token. LaunchPad provisions the server and sets it up with security best practices — no Linux experience needed.
Add your app, point it to your Git repo, and hit deploy. Kamal handles zero-downtime rolling deploys with automatic health checks.
Backblaze B2 keeps your database backups safe and affordable. Every deploy triggers a backup. Roll back to any point in minutes.
Everything you wanted to ask before clicking "Get Started".
No. LaunchPad does the SSH part for you. You give it a Hetzner API token; it provisions the server, installs Docker, configures the firewall, and exposes everything through the dashboard.
Your database backups live in Backblaze B2 — separate from your server. If the server is destroyed, you spin up a new one and restore from the latest backup in a few minutes.
LaunchPad ships with strong Rails defaults (Kamal, automatic /up health checks), but any Dockerized web app works — Django, Node, Go, etc.
You see the monthly cost of each server inside LaunchPad before you provision it. We don't add a markup; Hetzner bills you directly.
Hit the password-reset link on the sign-in page and we email you a secure reset link that expires after a short window — no admin needed.
Yes — LaunchPad has a free tier to get your first app live, with paid plans (Solo and Team) when you need more. Either way you pay Hetzner directly for servers (from ~€4/month) and Backblaze for backup storage (~$0.005/GB), with no LaunchPad markup. See the pricing page for the full breakdown in Rand.
Run your Rails apps on Hetzner at a fraction of what you'd pay Heroku — and keep full control of your own infrastructure.
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