Choosing a Mode: Simple vs Advanced
What changes between Simple and Advanced mode, and how to switch later.
DeployOS has two ways of presenting itself, chosen on first launch and changeable anytime in Settings. Both modes run the exact same engine underneath — Simple just hides the infrastructure decisions you don't want to make yet.
Simple mode
Built for "I have a repo, make it live." When Simple is active:
- The New App form only asks for an app name, a GitHub repository, and an optional custom domain. Everything else (branch, service name, port, health check, build method, replicas) is tucked behind an Advanced options toggle.
- The build method defaults to Railpack, which builds straight from your repo without needing a
Dockerfile. - The server picker is hidden once you have one connected server — new apps just deploy there.
- Navigation hides server-fleet screens (multi-server list, discovery/adopt, proxy choice) that don't matter until you have more than one machine.
- The onboarding checklist walks you through exactly three steps: connect a server → connect GitHub → deploy your repo.
Advanced mode
Everything Simple mode has, plus:
- Full server fleet management — add multiple VPSs, scan/adopt existing ones, choose Traefik or Caddy as the reverse proxy per server.
- The full New App form: branch, service name, container port, health-check path, replica count, backup profile, and all four build methods.
- Databases, Backups, Secrets (global key/value + external providers), Monitoring, and the Files/Console tabs on each app.
- Manual migration of apps between servers, DNS cutover tooling, and firewall controls.
Switching later
Go to Settings → Mode and flip the toggle. Nothing you built in Simple mode is lost or hidden in Advanced — every app, server, and deployment is exactly the same underlying object; Advanced just shows more of it.
Most people start in Simple, ship something, and switch to Advanced the moment they want a second server, a database, or a custom build pipeline.