where it runs

start with what
you have

Seamside runs on your own devices, so what you run it on is an actual choice rather than a plan you pick. Here are the four setups people use. You can start on any of them and move later without breaking a single share link.

just your phone

a phone or tablet, nothing else

You can open anything shared with you, join other people's spaces, and use the frames they host. Nothing of yours is hosted, because there is nothing running to host it.

your things are reachable not yet Costs nothing. A fine way to see what this is before you commit a machine to it.

a laptop, plus your phones

where most people start

Now you are hosting. Make frames, furnish spaces, invite people, and share anything you like on the open web. Your phone stays connected to the laptop as the same identity, so you carry it all around with you.

your things are reachable while the laptop is awake Costs nothing. Close the lid and your visitors wait until it opens again.

a machine you leave on

an old desktop, a mini PC, a small board

Anything that can sit in a cupboard and stay powered. Your laptop keeps doing laptop things, and the quiet machine holds whatever needs to be there when you are not.

The desktop you already have, or a Raspberry Pi, a ZimaBoard, a Mac mini, or any small Intel or AMD box.

your things are reachable always Costs a few dollars a year in electricity, on hardware you already own.

a small server you rent

a VPS from whichever host you like

The same thing as the cupboard machine, except somebody else keeps it powered and connected. Worth it if you have no machine to spare, would rather not look after one, or want a steadier connection than the one at home.

Any Linux server you control: DigitalOcean, Hetzner, Vultr, and plenty of others.

your things are reachable always Costs $4 to $12 a month, paid to the host, never to us.

They stack. A laptop, a desktop, and a rented server can all be your devices at once. They share one identity, so to everyone else you are still just you, and your things live wherever it makes sense for them to live.

you can change your mind

The reason it is safe to start small is that a frame is not stuck where you made it. Move a running one from your laptop to the machine in the cupboard, and its data goes with it.

Every link you have handed out keeps working. Every space it sits in still shows it. The frame keeps its address, so nobody you shared it with has to be told anything.

Which means the first rung is not a decision you have to get right. It is just where you happen to be standing.

adding a second machine

However you go about it, the handbook walks through pairing a new device to your identity, and through the installer if the new one is a server.

read the setup guide

what all of this costs download seamside