Pods
A pod is a persistent Linux container running on InstaPods infrastructure. Unlike ephemeral sandboxes, pods are full system containers — all files, installed packages, and configurations survive restarts. Think of it as your own tiny server.
Each pod gets:
- A public URL (e.g.,
my-app.nbg1-1.instapods.app)
- A dedicated SSH port for remote access
- A pre-installed development stack based on its preset
- Its own filesystem at
/home/instapod/app
Pods can be started, stopped, restarted, resized, and deleted. When stopped, your data is preserved — you only lose the running processes.
Presets
A preset defines the software stack pre-installed in a pod. InstaPods offers four presets:
| Preset | Stack | App Port | Use Case |
|---|
| Static | nginx | 80 | HTML/CSS/JS sites, landing pages |
| PHP | nginx + PHP-FPM 8.3 + Composer | 80 | PHP applications, APIs |
| Node.js | Node.js 20 + npm + systemd service | 3000 | Express, Next.js, any Node app |
| Python | Python 3.12 + pip + venv + systemd service | 8000 | Django, Flask, FastAPI |
Plans
Plans determine the resources allocated to your pod:
| Plan | CPU | Memory | Storage | Price | Services |
|---|
| Launch | 1 vCPU | 512 MB | 10 GB | $3/mo | No |
| Build | 2 vCPU | 2 GB | 25 GB | $7/mo | Yes |
| Grow | 2 vCPU | 4 GB | 50 GB | $15/mo | Yes |
| Scale | 4 vCPU | 8 GB | 100 GB | $25/mo | Yes |
| Turbo | 6 vCPU | 12 GB | 150 GB | $49/mo | Yes |
The Launch plan does not support database services (MySQL, PostgreSQL, Redis). Upgrade to Build or higher to install services.
Regions
A region is a geographic location where your pods run. Each region has one or more servers. When creating a pod, you can optionally select a region — if you don’t, InstaPods automatically picks the closest server based on your location.
List available regions via the CLI or API:
This shows each region and how many servers are available. You can also view regions at app.instapods.com or via the API at GET /api/regions.
Teams
A team is the organizational unit for billing and access control. Every user belongs to at least one team.
- Pods belong to teams, not individual users
- Billing (subscriptions, invoices) is per-team
- Team members can manage all pods within the team
- You can create multiple teams and switch between them
See Teams for more on managing teams and inviting members.
