Introducing Vantrex: deploy from git to a global edge

Today Vantrex is open for sign-ups, and it's free.

Vantrex is a deploy platform. You point it at a GitHub repository, or run one command from a terminal, and a few minutes later your site is live at a real address. It builds static sites, Vite and Astro projects, and Next.js apps, including server-rendered routes. Production is served from two regions, Ohio and Sydney.

Why we built it

We wanted the workflow of the best deploy platforms, a push becomes a URL, on infrastructure we understand end to end. Most of what slows a team down isn't the deploy itself. It's the questions around it: what is actually live right now, can I see this change before it ships, and how do I undo it if it's wrong. Vantrex is built around those three answers.

What you get

Every branch and pull request gets a preview. Each one has its own address that follows its newest commit, so a review starts with a link instead of a checkout. Production only moves when you promote a deployment.

Rollback is one step. Every deployment is kept and never changes. To roll back, promote an earlier one. Nothing is rebuilt, so the address switches straight away.

Static and server apps behind the same kind of URL. Static output is served from the edge. Next.js server routes run in isolated containers beside the edge in each region, and a deployment only goes live after its server has started and answered a request, so a build that can't boot never replaces one that works.

Visibility built in. Build logs stream live. Runtime logs, traffic by country, and cache hit rates are in the same dashboard, and there is a firewall in front of your sites with rules by address, country or path, and rate limits.

Caching that respects your app. Responses from server routes are cached at the edge only when your application marks them shareable. We would rather miss a hit than serve one person's page to another. You can purge by project, tag or path.

Your own domains. Add a domain, create one DNS record, and a certificate is issued and renewed for you.

From a terminal

vtx login      #approve in the browser

vtx link       # connect this folder to a project

vtx deploy     # upload, build remotely, print the address

vtx deploy --prod

The vtx CLI is a single binary for macOS (Intel and Apple silicon), Linux and Windows. Files that look like secrets, such as .env and private keys, are never uploaded. Set those in the dashboard instead, where values are encrypted and can never be read back.

Built to run your code safely

Running code you wrote on shared infrastructure deserves a straight explanation, so there is one on our security page. The short version: builds and servers run in their own containers as an unprivileged user, with limits on CPU, memory and time, no route to our internal network, and no platform secrets in the build environment. Pull requests from forks are never built, because that code isn't yours. Containers share the host kernel, and we say so plainly on that page, along with what we don't yet do.

Free, with limits

Vantrex is free. To keep a shared service fair, each account has limits: 20 projects, 2 builds running at once, 100 deployments in any 24 hours, 1 GiB per deployment and 10 custom domains. They're all listed in the docs. If you need more, write to us and tell us what you're building.

What to expect

This is an early launch, and we would rather be clear about that than pretend otherwise. We are a single developer running real infrastructure in two regions, and you may hit rough edges. There is a status page that shows what's happening, and the changelog records what changes and when. Account deletion and data export are in your account settings if you ever want out.

Get started

1. Sign in at app.vantrex.cloud with GitHub or email. New email accounts confirm their address with a link first.

2. Install the GitHub App, import a repository, and watch the first build.

3. Or install the CLI and run vtx deploy in a folder.

The documentation covers the whole platform and every CLI command. If something is unclear, missing or wrong, tell us. That is the most useful thing you can do for us right now.

Thanks for trying it.