The Skylantix Philosophy
Not a corporation. A collective microcloud—a community of users and technologists who believe digital life should be personal, private, and ethical.
Founding Principles
The goal is simple: to create a sustainable, human-scale cloud hosting model that values fairness, transparency, and generosity over growth for its own sake.
The internet was meant to be decentralized, personal, and curious. Skylantix simply reclaims that spirit.
Skylantix isn't a startup chasing infinite growth. It's a long-term craft project built on a simple belief: technology should serve people, not the other way around.
When you join Skylantix, you're not just renting server space — you're becoming part of a small, self-sustaining community that values privacy, transparency, and care in engineering.
The Story Behind Skylantix
Skylantix was founded by a University of Chicago student who loves infrastructure and believes the internet should belong to people, not corporations. I'm learning production sysadmin work by actually doing it—managing real infrastructure for real users.
I'm building a collective microcloud—starting small and growing deliberately toward 5,000 members, with a commitment to transparency and community. After graduation, I'm running this full-time from Orange County, California, where the servers actually live. You'll talk to me directly via Mattermost, not through ticket systems. Your data stays on California-based hardware I own, not scattered across Amazon's datacenters.
Skylantix is built on solid economics from day one. The infrastructure costs are covered with minimal members, allowing me to focus on growing the collective deliberately rather than desperately. This isn't a venture-backed startup burning cash—it's a sustainable craft project. The infrastructure runs on owner-managed servers with redundant internet and backup power systems. Everything is fronted through Cloudflare for security and DDoS protection, with automated offsite backups following the 3-2-1 rule.
This is a human-scale operation by design. Small, sustainable, and built on trust—not market share. $20/month or $200/year. The first 50 members total get extraordinary perks when we reach 1,250 members: if you chose annual, free service as long as Skylantix operates; if you chose monthly, 50% off as long as Skylantix operates. We're building this together, deliberately and transparently.
The Skylantix Promise
A collective microcloud that remembers the internet was meant to be human.
1. Fair Pricing, Real Costs
What you pay reflects the actual cost of running and improving the service — no hidden fees, no artificial scarcity. Prices adjust only if the real world demands it: hardware, electricity, or bandwidth, not corporate greed.
2. Shared Prosperity
If Skylantix has a good year, you'll feel it too. Some years that means better hardware, more features, or free upgrades. Some years, it means no bill in December. When Skylantix wins, everyone wins.
3. Sustainable Independence
We own our hardware, we pay our own bills, and we answer to no investors. That keeps us honest and lets us stay small enough to care.
4. Privacy by Design
Your data lives here—encrypted at rest and in transit, on physical servers in California. It's never tracked, mined, or sold.
5. Stewardship Over Growth
We're not trying to host the world, just the right kind of people. When we reach our ideal size, we'll slow down, switch to invites, and focus on making what exists better instead of bigger.
6. Radical Transparency
We don't expect trust without proof. Skylantix runs in the open — with status pages, changelogs, and yearly transparency reports that show where money goes, how systems perform, and what we're improving. Honesty isn't a feature here; it's infrastructure.
Most companies measure success in users and revenue. We measure ours in uptime, trust, and the quiet satisfaction of knowing a few thousand people have a corner of the internet that's truly theirs.
That's the deal.
No hype, no fine print — just good infrastructure and good intent.
The internet works best when it's personal.
We're here to keep it that way.
— Raphael Bitton, Founder & Principal Engineer
The $20 Price Philosophy
per month (or $200/year), every member
Each Skylantix membership costs $20 per month or $200 per year. That price is deliberate:
- • It's affordable but substantial—enough to sustain the service without exploiting users.
- • It's psychologically sincere: not rounded to $19.99 or $14.99, but chosen with intention.
- • It leaves room for student discounts (40% off for 3 years for university students) without collapsing margins.
- • It reflects fairness: the value of a cup of coffee per week for privacy, reliability, and transparency.
The Structure
Skylantix operates initially as a sole proprietorship (Schedule C), but with the internal ethics of a collective. As the project grows, it may evolve into a nonprofit or collective structure—but the core principles will remain unchanged:
Accountability
After admin wages, profits split 50/50: reinvestment in an endowment to help prices stay low long term and support for open-source community.
Sustainability
Hardware amortized every 3–5 years, fully owned. RAID Z3 redundancy from launch.
The Growth Vision
Skylantix is growing deliberately toward 5,000 members globally.
Each user receives:
- ✓ Secure, fast Nextcloud and Immich hosting with end-to-end encryption and 180 GB of shared storage
- ✓ @skylantix.net email with 20GB of storage (a drop-in replacement for Google Workspace)
- ✓ Hosted Bitwarden, Linkding, Mattermost, Gitea, Immich, and Minecraft Server
- ✓ Personalized support via Mattermost or email (no ticket bureaucracy)
- ✓ A voice in the community's direction and development
Growth will not be exponential; it will be deliberate. We're starting small and building trust as we grow. The project's health is measured in trust, not market share.
User Ownership and Community
🎁 Rewarding Early Members
The first 50 members total get extraordinary rewards when Skylantix reaches financial viability (1,250 members):
- If you chose annual: All fees waived as long as Skylantix operates
- If you chose monthly: 50% discount ($10/month instead of $20) as long as Skylantix operates
These perks are our way of thanking those who trust us early and help build the community from the ground up.
All users are invited to Mattermost to discuss updates, shape the future of the collective, and provide direct feedback. Skylantix aims to feel less like a service provider and more like a digital village.
Infrastructure & Growth Roadmap
Skylantix starts in Orange County, California with RAID Z3 redundancy. At 100 members, we add a second geographically distinct node for distribution. As demand grows, additional nodes in geographically separated California locations will be added. Each location will host approximately 1,250 users—balancing load, redundancy, and data sovereignty.
With Cloudflare and VPS-based caching, Skylantix can reduce outbound bandwidth by 96–98%, keeping operational costs minimal. Hardware is amortized over 3-5 years, ensuring stable costs while user data remains on owner-managed, privacy-respecting systems. No hyperscaler lock-in.
Closing Vision
Skylantix's long-term goal is not domination—it's dignity.
A place where users know their sysadmin by name.
A cloud that doesn't pretend to own the sky.
Ready to Join the Collective?
If this philosophy resonates with you, we invite you to become a member of the Skylantix collective. Help us build a more ethical, personal, and decentralized internet.