Comparison
How Low‑Ops.AI compares.
Custom build, hosted control plane, public PaaS or Low-Ops.AI — a side-by-side on the things IT leadership actually asks about.
01Comparison
Four ways to run internal apps. One keeps IT in control.
Building your own platform, renting a hosted control plane, moving to a public PaaS — or installing Low-Ops.AI on infrastructure you already own.
Criteria
Custom buildMix & match open-source tools
Hosted control planeQovery, Porter, Flightcontrol
SaaS / cloud PaaSHeroku, Render, Vercel, Railway
Low-Ops.AIOff-the-shelf, self-hosted
DevOps / CI/CD
Self-managed (e.g. GitLab, Gitea)
Bring your own CI/CD
Bring your own CI/CD
Included with automated CI/CD
Internal developer portal
Optional (e.g. Backstage)
Included
Included
Included — self-service for domain experts, oversight for IT
AI agent access (MCP)
Build it yourself
Rare
Rare
Built-in MCP server with the same governance as humans
Monitoring
Any tool (self-integrated)
Sometimes included
Bring your own (e.g. Datadog)
Built-in (OpenTelemetry, Prometheus, Grafana)
Database
Any
Your choice
Sometimes included
PostgreSQL included
Object storage
Any
Your choice
Sometimes included
S3-compatible storage included
Disaster recovery
High effort (fully your responsibility)
High effort (your responsibility)
Sometimes included
Included (automated backups & restore)
Control plane
Self-managed
SaaS
SaaS
Self-hosted
Private infrastructure
Yes
Yes
No
Yes (including control plane)
Licensing model
Free software, paid people
Per seat / per environment
Per seat / per resource
Per app in production — unlimited creators
Total cost of ownership
Low licence cost, high labour & maintenance
High licence cost, high DevOps responsibility
Very high recurring costs
Medium cost, minimal maintenance
DevOps / CI/CD
- Custom build
- Self-managed (e.g. GitLab, Gitea)
- Hosted control plane
- Bring your own CI/CD
- SaaS / cloud PaaS
- Bring your own CI/CD
- Low-Ops.AI
- Included with automated CI/CD
Internal developer portal
- Custom build
- Optional (e.g. Backstage)
- Hosted control plane
- Included
- SaaS / cloud PaaS
- Included
- Low-Ops.AI
- Included — self-service for domain experts, oversight for IT
AI agent access (MCP)
- Custom build
- Build it yourself
- Hosted control plane
- Rare
- SaaS / cloud PaaS
- Rare
- Low-Ops.AI
- Built-in MCP server with the same governance as humans
Monitoring
- Custom build
- Any tool (self-integrated)
- Hosted control plane
- Sometimes included
- SaaS / cloud PaaS
- Bring your own (e.g. Datadog)
- Low-Ops.AI
- Built-in (OpenTelemetry, Prometheus, Grafana)
Database
- Custom build
- Any
- Hosted control plane
- Your choice
- SaaS / cloud PaaS
- Sometimes included
- Low-Ops.AI
- PostgreSQL included
Object storage
- Custom build
- Any
- Hosted control plane
- Your choice
- SaaS / cloud PaaS
- Sometimes included
- Low-Ops.AI
- S3-compatible storage included
Disaster recovery
- Custom build
- High effort (fully your responsibility)
- Hosted control plane
- High effort (your responsibility)
- SaaS / cloud PaaS
- Sometimes included
- Low-Ops.AI
- Included (automated backups & restore)
Control plane
- Custom build
- Self-managed
- Hosted control plane
- SaaS
- SaaS / cloud PaaS
- SaaS
- Low-Ops.AI
- Self-hosted
Private infrastructure
- Custom build
- Yes
- Hosted control plane
- Yes
- SaaS / cloud PaaS
- No
- Low-Ops.AI
- Yes (including control plane)
Licensing model
- Custom build
- Free software, paid people
- Hosted control plane
- Per seat / per environment
- SaaS / cloud PaaS
- Per seat / per resource
- Low-Ops.AI
- Per app in production — unlimited creators
Total cost of ownership
- Custom build
- Low licence cost, high labour & maintenance
- Hosted control plane
- High licence cost, high DevOps responsibility
- SaaS / cloud PaaS
- Very high recurring costs
- Low-Ops.AI
- Medium cost, minimal maintenance
Get started
Let your experts build AI. Keep IT in control.
Turn AI ideas into governed, permanent digital employees on your own infrastructure — self-service for domain experts, complete oversight for IT, and no per-seat creator tax.