What we run
Everything we actually run. Updated as the stack changes.
Hosting & infrastructure
Hetzner — CX22 VPS at €4.85/month. Runs this entire blog: six Ghost instances, MySQL, Traefik, nginx. Reliable, fast European datacentres, straightforward pricing. (€10 credit for new accounts)
Vultr — Alternative VPS provider. Good for spinning up extra capacity or testing deployments before committing. ($35 referral credit)
Cloudflare — DNS, proxy, DDoS protection, and email obfuscation. Free tier covers everything we need.
Traefik — Reverse proxy with automatic SSL via Let's Encrypt DNS-01. Handles routing for all six Ghost instances from a single container.
Docker + Docker Compose — All services run in containers. The entire stack is defined in one docker-compose.yml.
Tailscale — Encrypted mesh VPN between home lab and the VPS. Free tier covers personal use.
AI & models
OpenClaw — Primary agent framework. Handles automations, integrations, and the content workflow that feeds this blog.
Claude Code — Daily driver for coding and infrastructure work. At $17/month it routinely replaces €100+ in raw API usage.
Claude API — Opus 4 for translation and rewrites, Sonnet 4 for drafting, Haiku 4 for fast tasks.
OpenAI — DALL-E 3 for cover image generation. Codex for occasional code completion via API.
DeepSeek Chat — Cost-effective reasoning model for architecture planning and exploratory analysis.
ElevenLabs Scribe — Voice transcription. Converts voice notes to text before they enter the content workflow.
Publishing
Ghost — Self-hosted CMS. Six instances (EN, DE, FR, ES, NL, Staging) running on a single VPS.
Betterlytics — Privacy-friendly analytics. No cookies, no fingerprinting, no personal data. GDPR-compliant.
FastMail — Primary email and newsletter delivery for Ghost members. $5/month, unlimited aliases, 30-day free trial. (10% off first year)
Mailgun — Transactional system emails (Ghost account notifications, password resets).
Development
VirtualBox — Local dev VMs. Ubuntu Server LTS for full SSH and Docker access.
GitHub — Version control for all infrastructure-as-code, theme files, and publishing scripts.
Gamers Outlet — Cheap legal Windows keys for dev VMs and software licensing.
OpenClaw hosting (managed)
If you want OpenClaw without running your own server:
xCloud — Managed OpenClaw hosting. Skip the self-hosting setup entirely.
ClawTrust — AI automation platform built on OpenClaw, aimed at teams and agencies.
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