All the self-hosting power. None of the headaches.
Storage, apps and virtual machines in one app. Data sovereignty, by design.
30-day refund · no subscription · runs on Ubuntu 22.04+
// one surface
Hardware is fun. Software should be too.
Everything fiddly about a server, stitched into a complete User Interface.
19:00
storage
Own your data, and share it with those you care about.
about 2 min
19:02
machines
A full Linux environment, accessible through your browser.
about 40 s
19:03
backups
Back up files, virtual machines, containers and apps. Once, or on a schedule.
about 1 min
// agents
Let an agent do it.
Connect your favorite AI harness to the included MCP server. Scoped tokens decide what your agent can do, from creating virtual machines to changing your proxy.
- Works with Claude and any MCP client
- Scoped tokens: you decide what it can touch
thought · 1.8s
Done. game-server is running at 192.168.1.67 with 4 GB of RAM. Want me to open the console?
Done. minecraft-server.local.robertbrunhage.com is up and routing to the VM.
// the long list
We built quite a lot.
The rest of the server, here's the list:
- One-click apps, plus your own Docker apps
- Built-in reverse proxy with ACME certs
- An internal CA for local-only domains
- Public HTTPS for apps, VMs, and containers
- Peers: run more than one server, one list
- A host terminal on this box and every peer
- Cloud-init for new VMs
- USB device passthrough
- Clone VMs and containers
- Freeze a container, resume it later
- A console in your browser
- Backups of folders, apps, VMs, and containers, on a schedule
- SMB shares with per-user access
- ZFS and ext4 pools
- Drive health monitoring
- An activity feed that tells you what's wrong
- Household users, two-factor, OIDC login
- System and OS updates in the dashboard
- Runs on x86 and ARM
- No telemetry, no cloud account required
// pricing
$99, once.
One license, one server, for life. Early price: it goes up to $199 later.
lifetime license
early price- license
- lifetime
- servers
- 1 per license
- updates
- lifetime
- drives · shares
- unlimited
- new hardware
- transferable
- telemetry
- none
- refund
- 30 days
$99
$199
one-time · no subscription
30-day refund · Stripe · a second server is a second license
// faq
Questions people actually ask.
Pricing, hardware, privacy, and what happens if Bitsmith goes away.
What is Bitsmith?
An all-in-one home server. It sets up your ZFS storage, creates shares the whole house can reach, runs apps like Emby and Jellyfin, and hosts real virtual machines and Linux containers, all from one app. Bitsmith installs as a native Linux service on anything from a small board to a full server.
Can I run virtual machines and containers?
Yes, it's a core part of Bitsmith. Create KVM virtual machines from a cloud image, an uploaded qcow2 disk, or an installer ISO, configure them with cloud-init, pass through USB devices, clone them, and open a console in your browser. For lighter workloads there are LXC containers: fast, isolated Linux boxes you can clone and freeze. Both run on ARM as well as x86, and both are covered by backups. The one gap today is GPU passthrough. USB passthrough works, GPU doesn't yet.
How is Bitsmith different from Proxmox?
Proxmox is a bare-metal hypervisor with no storage, sharing, or app layer of its own. Bitsmith gives you VMs and LXC containers like Proxmox does, plus ZFS storage, SMB shares, one-click apps, and scheduled backups, in one interface aimed at a home rather than a data center. It also runs on ARM and installs on top of your existing Ubuntu instead of taking over the whole machine. If you want a pure hypervisor on server-grade x86, Proxmox is the deeper tool. If you want storage and virtualization in one app, that's Bitsmith.
What does the lifetime license cost?
A lifetime license is $99 per server right now. The full price is $199. You're buying in early.
What if it's not for me?
Email us within 30 days of purchase and we'll refund the full $99. No questions, no forms. We'd rather have customers who want to use Bitsmith.
What hardware do I need to run Bitsmith?
Anything that runs Ubuntu 22.04+ on amd64 or arm64. A Raspberry Pi works too, running Ubuntu for ARM (not Raspberry Pi OS). A Pi 4 handles light use; a mini PC with 16 GB RAM comfortably runs the whole stack. Drives can be SATA, USB, or NVMe.
How do backups work?
A backup lives on the thing it protects. Open a folder, an app, a VM, or a container and choose Back up: pick a destination (the system drive, a storage space, or a connected share on another machine), run it once or on a schedule, and say how many versions to keep. The Backups page lists every schedule and version by source, and a version restores into a folder you choose or comes back as a new VM, container, or app. Files stay in standard Linux filesystems so you can also use rsync, Borg, or Restic alongside if you prefer.
What happens to my data and apps if Bitsmith stops existing?
Your files live on your drives in standard Linux filesystems (ext4 or ZFS). Your apps are standard Docker containers with standard compose files. If we disappeared tomorrow, the only thing that would stop is the update mechanism: your server, your files, your apps, and your VMs keep running exactly as they do, and you'd manage them with the underlying Linux tools instead of through us. Nothing is locked into our format.
Install it on Ubuntu 22.04+
One command adds Bitsmith as a normal service. Nothing gets wiped, nothing gets reformatted. Open the address it prints, set up your account, and you're in.