Nick Potts
Nick Potts is an individual/solo developer building Ployz, an open-source deployment platform that turns Linux servers rented by developers into a hosted-platform-like environment. Ployz provides Git-push deploys, preview environments, databases, HTTPS, monitoring and coding-agent integrations while keeping applications on the user's own servers.
At a Glance
- Individual developers and solo builders
- Small software teams
- Startups and teams running web apps, workers and databases
- Agencies or developers hosting applications for clients
- +2 more
AI Tools by Nick Potts
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Ployz
Self Hosted PaaS for Linux Servers
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Latest News
Docker hosting in 2026: where to run containers — Ployz published a comparison of container hosting costs and running containers on a rented server.
Do you need a staging environment with previews? — Ployz discussed when teams need staging versus pull-request previews and compared hosted costs.
What is an ephemeral environment? — Ployz explained per-pull-request environments and how to run them on a user's own server.
How to move a Next.js app off Vercel — Ployz published an eight-step migration guide covering next start, Cron, Blob, Postgres and DNS.
Products & Services
The core deployment platform for Linux servers rented by the user. It builds and deploys applications, provides HTTPS addresses, preview environments for pull requests, service orchestration, private networking, logs, metrics, uptime checks and multi-server operation.
Open-source command-line and server software that installs on Linux servers, supports JSON output, deploys applications, manages services and servers, and can be run without depending on Ployz Cloud after deployment.
Hosted dashboard/control plane for managing projects, services, deployments, environments, servers, domains, databases, logs and monitoring. The dashboard can also be self-hosted.
An MCP server and agent workflow that lets Claude Code, Codex, Cursor and similar agents perform platform actions through Ployz tools, while requiring human approval for destructive changes.
Market Position
Ployz positions itself as “Railway for your own servers”: it offers hosted-PaaS workflow features while the customer supplies and controls the compute. Compared with Railway, Render, Vercel and Heroku, its differentiator is lower infrastructure markup and portability; compared with self-hosted competitors such as Coolify, Dokploy, Dokku, CapRover, Easypanel and Kamal, it emphasizes pull-request previews, multi-server networking, an integrated dashboard and coding-agent/MCP workflows with approval guardrails. It does not require Kubernetes.
Leadership
Founders
Nick Potts
Independent software developer and the creator/maintainer of Ployz. His public GitHub profile identifies him as based in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia; the Ployz site says he built the project after moving a busy app off hosted platforms onto a rented server. His public GitHub account maintains the Ployz repositories and many other software projects.
Executive Team
Nick Potts
Creator and sole builder of Ployz
Independent developer based in Brisbane, Australia. He designs and maintains Ployz, its open-source repositories, CLI, dashboard and coding-agent workflow.
Founding Story
Ployz was started after Nick Potts moved a busy application off hosted platforms and onto a rented server. The initial vision was to preserve the easy workflow of platforms such as Railway—dashboard, previews and push-to-deploy—while reducing infrastructure cost and retaining control by running on servers the developer rents and owns operationally.
Business Model
Revenue Model
The core software is free and open source on the user's own servers. Ployz Cloud monetizes the hosted dashboard/control plane through subscription plans; the user's infrastructure provider separately bills for the rented servers. The dashboard agent is included for now, with the site saying it may later move to usage-based pricing or require the customer's Anthropic key.
Pricing Tiers
One server from any provider; unlimited projects, deploys, members, preview environments and custom domains; one-click databases; logs, monitoring, uptime checks and a latest restore point.
Three servers included, then $5 for each additional server; planned 30-day off-server backups, 90-day metrics, protected environments, four uptime-check regions and email support.
Contract-based plan with servers and backups per contract, onboarding/migration, named engineer, shared Slack channel and planned SSO/SAML/SCIM and audit-log features.
Target Markets
- Individual developers and solo builders
- Small software teams
- Startups and teams running web apps, workers and databases
- Agencies or developers hosting applications for clients
- Users seeking a self-hosted alternative to Railway, Render, Vercel, Heroku or similar PaaS products
- Teams using coding agents to operate infrastructure
- Deploying web applications on servers rented from providers such as Hetzner, OVH, Netcup, DigitalOcean, Vultr and Scaleway
- Running a web app, worker and database together on one or more Linux servers
- Creating isolated preview environments for pull requests
- Replacing or reducing dependence on hosted PaaS platforms
- Using Claude Code, Codex or Cursor to manage deployment infrastructure with human approval
- Hosting client applications with separate servers or projects