How this compares
Software you install on hardware you own.
Stratum is not a provider, it is a cloud you install. The other columns are broad strokes; check their sites.
| Aspect | Stratum | A public cloud | OpenStack | Proxmox VE |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| What it is | Software you install on your own servers | A service run by a provider, on their hardware | Software you install on your own servers | Software you install on your own servers |
| Who runs the hardware | You | The provider | You | You |
| Shape | One binary, one ISO; a single node or a hyperconverged cluster | Regions and zones you choose from | Many services you compose and operate | A cluster of hypervisor hosts |
| Tenancy | Organizations, projects, policies, per-VPC isolation, audit | Accounts and organizations | Domains and projects | Users, groups and resource pools in one administrative domain |
| Interfaces | One OpenAPI document; CLI, Terraform provider and console generated from it | API, CLI, Terraform, console | Per-service APIs, CLI, Terraform, dashboard | REST API, CLI, web UI, a Terraform provider from the community |
| Managed services | Built in, run by whoever runs the install: a database (cluster) and volume backup today; Kubernetes and messaging planned | Hundreds, operated by the provider | Through additional projects you operate | None; you run them in VMs |
| Getting started | A clean server to a working cloud in an afternoon | A credit card | Days to weeks, and a team to run it | An hour for a node |
| Cost and licence | Free software, AGPL-3.0; you pay for the hardware | Pay per use | Free software, Apache-2.0; you pay for the operation | Free software, AGPL-3.0; paid subscriptions for the enterprise repository and support |
When Stratum is the right pick
- You own servers, or want to, and want a cloud on them rather than a virtualisation panel.
- You want more than one team on the same hardware, with real boundaries between them.
- You want Terraform, a CLI and a console that agree, because they come from one document.
- You want the data, the network and the keys to stay in your building.
When it is not
- You need regions on three continents by Friday.
- You want somebody else to run it: there is no vendor behind it.
- You need object storage, a database or Auto Scaling on one machine: those need a cluster.
- You need a support contract: Stratum is pre-1.0 and free.