We support auto build/deploy upon the launch of your application and then on every code commit to the branch configured. The docker image is stored in a container registry in your cloud account.

Outside of the auto build/deploy process, we don't yet support ad-hoc docker builds.

Thanks!

In terms of matching the simplicity of Heroku, I feel like Render is probably the closest thing to it.

I'm curious, anything in particular that you are skeptical about?

Nullstone does support this use case, all applications are private by default. In order to make them public, you would add a Load Balancer, CDN, or Api Gateway. In your case, just don't add this and your application will remain private.

We don't currently support the automatic pause of applications due to inactivity. However, we do support starting/stopping your app via the UI, API, or CLI.

Cool, could you point me a link to the API for deploying, starting, stopping the app?

We don't have our API documented yet but here is the documentation for the CLI. https://docs.nullstone.io/getting-started/cli/docs.html

To launch your application you would use the `nullstone up` command. To tear it down you would use the `nullstone down` command. To deploy your code, you would use the `nullstone launch`.

Each of these command are just making API calls under the hood. If you want to hop on our Slack channel, I'd be glad to share the details.

Qovery, Porter, and FlightControl are at least a few examples

Yes, there are a lot of PaaS and Developer Platforms out there to choose from. In my past roles leading development teams, I always found it hard to make existing solutions fit because they were too black box and I couldn't customize or add the things I needed support for. I also had security and compliance considerations that were difficult to navigate because I wasn't in control.

The things unique to Nullstone are: 1. Nullstone launches everything to your cloud account. You keep full ownership of your data. 2. 100% of the infrastructure is launched using modules. You can add your own or customize the out-of-the-box modules to support whatever your use case. 3. Many other solutions just handle your apps (no databases or other infrastructure). Nullstone supports launching apps, datastores, any cloud managed service, and integrations with tools like Datadog, Twilio, Sendgrid, and more.

Hope that gives you an idea of how we differ from other solutions.