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Soft Serve Hosting Live In 5 Minutes

Soft Serve hosting on xCloud lets you deploy Soft Serve, a self-hostable Git server for the command line, on your own server. xCloud runs the pinned official image with its data on a persistent volume, attaches your SSH public key as the administrator, serves Git over HTTPS on your domain and opens an SSH port for the terminal UI. There is no web interface, so you work from the command line.

Deploy your Soft Serve
  • No terminal
  • No technical skills needed
  • No lock-in, cancel anytime

What is Soft Serve?

Soft Serve is a self-hostable Git server for the command line, written in Go and shipped as a single binary. It offers a terminal UI browsable over SSH, cloning over SSH or HTTP, Git LFS, repository creation on demand by push, collaborators, access tokens for HTTP, webhooks, server-side hooks and pull mirrors. A self-hosted Soft Serve is a Git server for the terminal that gives you private repositories of your own. The licence is MIT.

On xCloud it is Soft Serve v0.12.2, the Charm image pinned by digest, as one container with SQLite and its data in the soft_serve_data volume. You give an SSH public key at install, which becomes the admin. Git over HTTPS runs on your domain, where the homepage returns 404, and SSH uses an allocated port on the server IP.

About this app

Version xCloud installs
0.12.2
Licence
MIT
Source code
github.com/charmbracelet/soft-serve

Soft Serve is a third-party project. xCloud is not affiliated with or endorsed by its maintainers. Names and logos belong to their owners.

From Sign-Up to Live Soft Serve Hosting In 3 Easy Steps

Self-hosting a Git server normally means a host, SSH port setup, HTTPS for Git clients and key management. This is the same result without assembling any of it.

  1. Step 01

    Sign Up

    Create your xCloud account and pick Soft Serve from the OneClick catalog. Choose a domain and paste your admin SSH public key — that is the only field.

  2. Step 02

    We Deploy It For You

    One click. We bring up the pinned Soft Serve v0.12.2 image, publish Git over HTTPS on your domain, and open the SSH port for the TUI and Git over SSH.

  3. Step 03

    Connect Over SSH And Push

    Save the connection details, run ssh with your matching private key to reach the TUI, then create a repository with git push and clone it over SSH or HTTPS.

Everything Soft Serve Does, On Your Own Server

Soft Serve runs in full here — a terminal-first Git server on infrastructure you control.

  • Terminal-First Git Hosting

    Browse repositories, files and commits in an easy-to-use TUI over SSH, and print files with syntax highlighting and line numbers.

  • Clone And Push Over SSH Or HTTPS

    Smart HTTP runs on your xCloud domain with managed TLS, and Git over SSH runs on a dedicated port.

  • Git LFS Built In

    HTTP and SSH LFS backends for large binary assets, so big files stay out of your normal commit history.

  • Simple Access Control

    SSH public-key authentication, collaborators, public or private repositories, and user access tokens for HTTPS.

  • Repository Management From The Shell

    Create repositories on demand with git push or the SSH CLI, nest them, and import or mirror public remotes.

  • Survives A Restart

    Repositories, commit history, LFS objects and configuration live on a persistent volume — verified on QA.

Everything You Need To Run Your Git Server 24/7

Managed hosting for Soft Serve, so the parts that keep it online are not your problem.

  • Soft Serve v0.12.2 deployed instantly
  • Your SSH key becomes the admin
  • Free SSL certificate
  • Server backups available
  • Unused balance refunded

What You Can Do With Soft Serve

  • Host private repositories without a web app

    Create repositories by pushing to them over SSH and manage access from the terminal UI, so a small team has a Git server with no web service to secure.

  • Browse code in the terminal over SSH

    Connect with ssh to browse repositories, files and commits in a terminal UI, with optional syntax highlighting, without cloning first.

  • Give a CI job read-only HTTPS access

    Use HTTP access tokens or anonymous read-only access over HTTPS, so a build server or a colleague can clone without receiving an SSH key.

  • Mirror a repository from elsewhere

    Import a repository as a pull mirror, so a copy of an open-source project or an old forge lives on a server you control.

Soft Serve vs Alternatives

GitHub
GitHub is a hosted forge with a web interface. Soft Serve is a Git server you run yourself for the command line, with a terminal UI over SSH and no browser app.
Gitea
Gitea has its own OneClick page. In a Soft Serve vs Gitea comparison, Soft Serve is a single Go binary driven from the terminal, with no web interface, issues or pull request pages.
Forgejo
Forgejo has its own OneClick page. Soft Serve keeps to Git hosting over SSH and HTTPS, with LFS, webhooks and a terminal UI instead of a web forge.
Gogs
Gogs has its own OneClick page. Soft Serve is administered over SSH with public keys, with access levels from read-only to admin and collaborators per repository.

Simple Pricing. Everything Included.

Dedicated Cloud VPS sizes, pre-configured for Soft Serve hosting. Pick the one that fits your Git server.

Cloud VPS 6 GB

Most popular

One Git server, with headroom well above the template floor.

$24.99per month

  • 6 GB RAM
  • 4 vCPU cores
  • 100 GB NVMe SSD
  • 30 TB
  • Unlimited
Get started

Cloud VPS 16 GB

A larger box for a busier Git server.

$59.99per month

  • 16 GB RAM
  • 6 vCPU cores
  • 200 GB NVMe SSD
  • 30 TB
  • Unlimited
Get started

Cloud VPS 24 GB

Soft Serve alongside a whole self-hosted stack.

$84.99per month

  • 24 GB RAM
  • 8 vCPU cores
  • 300 GB NVMe SSD
  • 30 TB
  • Unlimited
Get started

Soft Serve is free and open source under the MIT License; this is the managed server it runs on. The template manifest asks for 1 CPU core, 128 MB of RAM and 2 GB of disk. This page sells the 6 GB tier. Every size is a dedicated Cloud VPS.

Managed hosting

Already Have a Server? Bring Your Own

Connect any VPS — DigitalOcean, Vultr, Linode, AWS, Hetzner or bare metal — and deploy Soft Serve on it through the same panel, for a per-server management fee instead of a Cloud VPS rental.

Free

Start your journey without cost.

$0forever

  • 1 server
  • 10 sites
Start free

Starter

Most popular

Your rate with 2–5 servers connected.

$5per server / month

  • 2–5 servers
  • Unlimited sites
  • All features included
  • Bring any VPS provider
Get started

Professional

The same platform, discounted at 6–10 servers.

$4per server / month

  • 6–10 servers
  • Unlimited sites
  • All features included
  • Bring any VPS provider
Get started

Agency

The same platform, discounted at 11+ servers.

$3per server / month

  • 11+ servers
  • Unlimited sites
  • All features included
  • Bring any VPS provider
Get started

Priced per connected server, so your rate adjusts automatically as you add or remove servers. You pay your own provider for the server itself.

Self-managed hosting

Ready To Host Your Own Git Server?

Soft Serve on xCloud runs on a dedicated Cloud VPS. Deploy faster, keep your repositories on persistent storage and stay in control.

Hear what people are saying about us

See why agencies, developers, startups, and growing businesses choose xCloud to power their projects.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Feel free to contact us with any questions or concerns you may have.

How much RAM does Soft Serve need?

The template floor is 128 MB of RAM, 1 CPU core and 2 GB of disk, because it is a small Go binary with SQLite. The 6 GB plan is far above that, and disk use grows with the repositories you push.

Can you self-host Soft Serve with Docker?

Yes, and this template is soft serve docker hosting without the setup: the official Charm image pinned by digest, the soft_serve_data volume, your SSH key as administrator, Git over HTTPS on your domain and an allocated SSH port.

Does Soft Serve have a web interface?

No. It is a command-line Git server: opening your HTTPS address returns 404. Clone at https://your-domain/repo and use ssh to the allocated port for the terminal UI, administration and Git over SSH.

How do I clone repositories from Soft Serve?

Clone over HTTPS at your domain, where anonymous access is read-only by default, or over SSH on the allocated port. HTTP access tokens and Git LFS work too; the anonymous git:// daemon is not published by this template.

How do I sign in to Soft Serve as admin?

With the SSH key you entered at install. Run ssh with the allocated port against the server IP, and the key identifies you as admin. Prefer Ed25519 keys, because upstream supports only SHA-1 RSA among RSA keys.

Is Soft Serve an alternative to GitHub?

For hosting private Git repositories, yes. Upstream describes a Git server for the command line and makes no comparison with other forges. It has no web interface, issue tracker or pull request pages.

Is Soft Serve free?

Yes. Soft Serve uses the MIT licence and costs nothing to run. Only the Cloud VPS is billed, so this Soft Serve cloud install keeps every repository on a server of your own.

How do I back up Soft Serve?

Back up the soft_serve_data volume, which holds the repositories, the SQLite database and the server's keys. Keep a copy off the server, and note that the SSH host keys live there, so a restore keeps clients' known hosts valid.

Backup and restore Docker apps

How do I upgrade Soft Serve?

Soft Serve stays on its pinned v0.12.2 image until a newer template version is adopted. Copy soft_serve_data beforehand and check the release notes. Upgrades never run by themselves.

Is the Soft Serve SSH port public?

Yes, it is reachable from outside the server on its allocated port, protected by public-key authentication. Restrict it with your firewall if you do not need public access. HTTPS requests are capped at about 100 MB, so push large repositories over SSH.

Can I cancel anytime?

Yes. There is no lock-in — cancel any time. Hosting is billed monthly and charged for what you actually use, so when you delete the server the unused balance is refunded to your account, less up to 10% in payment-processing fees.

Related resources

The backup, SSH key and HTTPS guides that matter most once Soft Serve is live.

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