Choose between a VM, App Space and the App Market

Doprax gives you three ways to run something. All three are paid from the same credit, by the hour.

• A virtual machine (VM) is a Linux server that you manage yourself.
• An App Space runs your containers, and you do not manage a server.
• The App Market installs a ready-made app onto a VM you already have.

Side by side

	Virtual machine	App Space	App Market
What you get	A server with root access and its own public IP address	Containers on a private network, with a public HTTPS address for each port you expose	An app installed for you on your VM
What you bring	Nothing. You install what you need	A public Docker image, a public GitHub repository with a Dockerfile at its root, or a Compose file	A VM to install it on
What you look after	The operating system and everything on it	Your containers	The VM, and the app once it is installed
Where it runs	On ProVM, which is Doprax’s own hardware, or on one of seven other providers	In the App Space location you choose	On the VM you choose
What you pay	The VM’s plan	The App Space’s plan, whatever the number of containers	The plan of the VM. The App Market shows no price for an app
In the dashboard	Virtual Machines	Container Platform	App Market

Plans, prices and locations are on Virtual machine plans, Providers and What App Space is.

Choose a virtual machine when

• You want full control: your own operating system, root access and any software you like.
• What you run is not a container, for example a VPN, a game server or a router image.
• You need something App Space does not have, such as your own domain name or code from a private repository.

You can create a VM on eight providers from the same account: ProVM, Vultr, DigitalOcean, Hetzner, Google Cloud, Gcore, Scaleway and OVH. ProVM is the one the dashboard recommends.

Start with Create your first virtual machine.

Choose App Space when

• Your app already is a container: a public Docker image, or a public GitHub repository with a Dockerfile at its root.
• You want an HTTPS address without setting up a web server and certificates yourself.
• You want several containers that reach each other by name, such as an app and its database.

What App Space does not have today:

• No private GitHub repositories and no private image registries.
• No domain name of your own. A container gets an address under a Doprax domain.
• No change of plan for an App Space that exists.
• No snapshots.

Start with What App Space is and Deploy your first app.

Choose the App Market when

• The app you want is in the list, and you would rather not install it by hand.

You choose an app, choose one of your VMs and select Install. You can follow the installation in the live logs. After that the app is software on your VM like any other: you look after it.

Every app in the App Market today installs onto a VM. None installs onto an App Space.

Start with The App Market.

Still not sure

• A VM is the safe choice. Anything that runs on Linux runs on a VM, containers included.
• A stopped service costs the same as a running one, on a VM and on App Space. Delete what you do not use. See How billing works.