What Softkiln does, what it costs, and what happens to your app and its data once real people are using it.
Softkiln is the production layer for apps built with AI. You bring an app that works on your machine; Softkiln runs it for real — deploys, a web address with HTTPS, managed sign-in, secrets kept out of the code, backups you can restore, monitoring and security checks. It is the part that comes after the prototype.
Start the free trial, create the app, and deploy it. Softkiln provisions the database, environments and web address, injects your secrets at runtime rather than baking them into the code, and starts taking backups. Adding your own domain issues the certificate for you. There is no server to configure at any point.
No. The 15-day trial starts without one, and covers the full platform across up to 3 apps.
Yes. Every capability of the platform — creating an app, deploying, adding a domain, setting secrets, restoring a backup — is available to an AI assistant working in your editor or chat app, so you can ask for it in plain language instead of clicking through a dashboard.
Not on its own. The failure modes are consistent and mundane: an API key left in the page visitors download, a screen that never checks who is asking, a database with no working copy to fall back on. Softkiln is built around exactly those: secrets are injected at runtime and never reach the bundle, sign-in and permissions are managed for you rather than hand-rolled, and a deploy that would expose a credential is blocked before it ships.
Encrypted per app and per environment, and injected at runtime. They are never committed to the code, never included in the bundle your visitors download, and never pasted into a chat.
Automatic secret scanning runs on every deploy today and blocks a release that would expose credentials — on every plan. Continuous automated penetration testing (OWASP Top-10 and dependency issues, returned as fix-ready findings) is in progress and ships to Pro when it lands.
Whoever you allow. Each app gets a proper hosted sign-in page, its own list of users, and roles that control who can see what — including multi-factor authentication — without you writing any of it.
Backups are taken on a schedule around the clock, checked that they actually restore rather than just that they ran, and stored encrypted. Restoring is a single action. A backup nobody has ever restored is not a backup, so the health check is the point.
Deploys are zero-downtime and roll back in one action. You also get an isolated development environment to try things in first, so the live app only changes when you decide it should.
Yes. Uptime and response times are monitored continuously, with 90 days of history and a public status page you can put on your own domain.
In the EU. Both the running application and its backups sit in European infrastructure, with privacy-friendly defaults set from the start rather than retrofitted when someone asks.
Yes, on Pro — for the app and for its status page. The certificate is issued and renewed automatically, so the padlock keeps working without you thinking about it.
Yes — 15 days on the full platform, no credit card needed to start. It’s one 15-day trial per account, shared by up to 3 apps you build in it, and you can move to a paid plan whenever you’re ready.
One deployed application — its own web address, database and environments. You pay per app you run: $15 a month on Hobby, $49 on Pro.
Hobby runs a real production app on a softkiln.com address — deploys, backups, secrets, monitoring and a status page. Pro is for apps other people depend on: it puts the app and its status page on your own domain, adds shared access for your team, priority support, and the security and private-inference work described below. The rule of thumb is the moment a client, a customer or an auditor is looking at it, you want Pro.
Your monthly price for an app includes the same amount of usage — $15 on Hobby, $49 on Pro — covering compute, storage, bandwidth and backup storage. Most apps never reach it. If one does, you pay only for what it uses above the allowance, at cost. Your dashboard shows the running total and a per-resource breakdown at any time, so it’s never a surprise on the invoice.
Continuous, automated security review on every deploy — OWASP Top-10 checks and dependency issues — returned as fix-ready findings. It is in progress and ships to Pro when it lands. What runs today is automatic secret scanning, which blocks a deploy that would expose credentials, and that is on every plan.
Yes. Plans are monthly with no lock-in — cancel whenever and you won’t be billed again.
No. Handling the production stack so you don’t have to is the whole point of Softkiln.