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CodeFloe

Hardware

CodeFloe runs on Hetzner1, both directly and through a self-managed Proxmox VE cluster that is itself built from rented Hetzner bare metal. Hetzner brings many essential points to the table:

  • great value/cost ratio
  • GDPR compliance
  • Terraform/OpenTofu provider
  • VMs and bare-metal servers
  • S3

These are effectively all the parts which are needed to run any service. Yes, a managed database is missing in that list. However, we are brave (enough) to roll our own database 🤓️, both to save costs and “because we can” 😉️.

CodeFloe uses a mix of dedicated servers, cloud instances and virtual machines on a Proxmox VE cluster. Cloud instances are great for small services and dev instances. However, they only have a small root disk which cannot be used for a Ceph cluster (as Ceph requires a dedicated storage device). Also the shared NVMEs on the cloud instances are good, but not as good as NVMEs from dedicated servers.

The three rented dedicated servers (demeter, hades, minerva) that used to carry the database and part of the CI load were returned in July 2026. Their roles moved onto the Proxmox VE cluster, where a single large host can be carved into several right-sized VMs instead of being pinned to one role. The database now lives on three VMs spread across three physical hosts, and CI got three dedicated VMs of its own. Separating the two means a heavy build can no longer affect database latency.

For CI/CD, we know that speed matters. An AX42 (artemis), three Proxmox VMs on desktop-class CPUs (ci-1, ci-2, ci-3), a CAX41 cloud instance (ci-arm1) and a Mac Mini M4 (gaia) process the builds. See the CI/CD hardware page for the per-runner job capacity.

Name Env CPU Mem Disk OS GB 6 SC GB 6 MC Used for Costs/m (€)
artemis prod AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 8700GE 64 GB DDR5 ECC 2x 500 GB SAMSUNG MZVL2512HCJQ-00B0 NVME Alma10 2676 11864 CI/CD 57.30
git prod Ampere Neoverse-N1 (CAX31) 16 GB 160 GB NVME SSD Alma9 - - Git, HAProxy -
ci-arm1 prod Ampere Neoverse-N1 (CAX41) 32 GB 160 GB NVME SSD Alma10 - - CI/CD -
misc prod Ampere Neoverse-N1 (CAX21) 8 GB 80 GB NVME SSD Alma10 1079 3490 CI/CD, status, Forum 6.49
git-dev dev Ampere Neoverse-N1 (CAX11) 4 GB 40 GB NVME SSD Alma9 1035 1869 Git 3.79
misc-dev dev Ampere Neoverse-N1 (CAX11) 4 GB 40 GB NVME SSD Alma9 1035 1869 CI/CD, status, Forum 3.79
pgnode1-dev dev Ampere Neoverse-N1 (CAX11) 4 GB 40 GB NVME SSD Alma9 1035 1869 DB 3.79
pgnode2-dev dev Ampere Neoverse-N1 (CAX11) 4 GB 40 GB NVME SSD Alma9 1035 1869 DB 3.79
pgnode3-dev dev Ampere Neoverse-N1 (CAX11) 4 GB 40 GB NVME SSD Alma9 1035 1869 DB 3.79

The cluster nodes are rented Hetzner bare-metal servers (one AX102 and three EX101), shared with other projects. Each VM name carries the physical host it runs on, because the cluster has mixed CPUs.

Host Model CPU Threads Mem Rental/m (€)
zeus AX102 AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D 32 128 GB 112.00
hera EX101 Intel Core i9-13900 32 128 GB ~200.00
apollo EX101 Intel Core i9-13900 32 64 GB 81.00
poseidon EX101 Intel Core i9-13900 32 64 GB 78.00

CodeFloe only occupies part of each host, so every VM is charged the share of its host’s rental that it actually reserves. That share is the VM’s largest claim on any single host resource, max(vCPU / host threads, RAM / host RAM), which is whichever resource would run out first if the host were filled with identical VMs.

Name Env Host vCPU Mem Disk OS Used for Host share Costs/m (€)
local-zeus-codefloe-ci-1 prod zeus 8 22 GB 40 GB + 500 GB Alma10 CI/CD 25.0 % 28.00
local-hera-codefloe-ci-2 prod hera 8 16 GB 40 GB + 800 GB Alma10 CI/CD 25.0 % ~50.00
local-poseidon-codefloe-ci-3 prod poseidon 16 32 GB 15 GB + 500 GB Alma10 CI/CD 50.0 % 39.00
local-hera-codefloe-db-1 prod hera 4 16 GB 40 GB + 800 GB Alma10 DB 12.5 % ~25.00
local-apollo-codefloe-db-2 prod apollo 4 16 GB 40 GB + 800 GB Alma10 DB 25.0 % 20.25
local-poseidon-codefloe-db-3 prod poseidon 4 16 GB 40 GB + 800 GB Alma10 DB 25.0 % 19.50

That puts the cluster’s share of the bill at roughly €181.75/month, of which €117.00 is CI/CD.

Name Env CPU Mem Disk OS GB 6 SC GB 6 MC Used for Costs/m (€)
gaia prod Apple M4 32 GB DDR5 1x 500 GB APPLE SSD AP0512Z macOS 26 3781 14858 CI/CD -

Recurring costs total roughly €264.49/month across the hosts with a price listed above.

  1. There is no relationship/affiliation between CodeFloe and Hetzner.