At DeployOS, your infrastructure stays yours completely. No background daemon phoning home, no proprietary runtime consuming resources on your server, no vendor lock-in hiding in the small print.
The Traditional Model: Agent-Based Deployment
Tools like Coolify, Portainer, and almost every CI/CD platform work the same way: you install a persistent agent on your server that maintains a connection to the vendor's cloud. This agent:
- Consumes CPU and memory 24/7
- Opens permanent network ports
- Creates a dependency on the vendor's control plane
- Often requires root-level access to your hardware
- Leaves artifacts even after you uninstall
For small projects this is acceptable. But for production infrastructure especially at scale those agents add up to significant resource waste and attack surface.
The Agentless Alternative
DeployOS takes a fundamentally different approach: no agent, no daemon, no permanent footprint.
Instead of installing software on your servers, DeployOS connects over standard SSH the same protocol you already use to manage your machines by hand. When you trigger a deployment:
- The desktop app opens an SSH connection to your server
- Container images are built (or pulled) and started via standard Docker commands, run remotely over that connection
- SSL is provisioned through Let's Encrypt via your reverse proxy
- The SSH connection closes when the deploy finishes no persistent daemon left running
Why This Matters for Sovereignty
"Your keys, your control" isn't just a tagline. When there's no agent:
- No data leaves your network without your explicit action
- No vendor can access your infrastructure there's nothing to access
- No resource overhead your CPU cycles stay yours
- No vendor lock-in switch providers in seconds
The Numbers
A persistent agent process is commonly cited in the 100–500MB RAM range per server, plus a small constant CPU tax, just to stay connected to its control plane before it does any actual work. Multiply that across a fleet and it's real resources spent on nothing but staying reachable.
When Agentless Makes Sense
Agentless deployment is ideal for:
- Production workloads where every millisecond and megabyte counts
- Security-conscious environments (finance, healthcare, defense)
- Multi-cloud or hybrid setups where you need flexibility
- Homelab enthusiasts who want full control
Getting Started
Ready to try it? The free plan covers one server, no card required. Download the app, paste your server's IP and an SSH key into the Add Server wizard, and deploy your first app from a GitHub repo or a local folder DeployOS handles the rest. Your server stays clean. Your data stays yours.