Versioned and checked
Every change is made in version control and checked automatically before it goes anywhere near your site.
Platform
The platform behind every site we look after
We build and run our own hosting platform in Sheffield. This page explains how it works - how changes reach your site, how your data is protected and how we keep things running - so you know exactly what you are relying on.
Every change is controlled and recorded
Nothing reaches your site by accident. Every change follows the same path, and the path leaves a record.
Staging first
Changes go to a private staging copy of your site, behind a PIN, so they can be seen and tested before anyone else sees them.
People approve what matters
Small, routine changes ship automatically once every check passes. Larger or riskier changes - including every release of your live site - wait for a person to review and approve them.
A full record
Whether a change shipped automatically or by approval, there is a record of what changed, who approved it and when, and rolling back is a single step.
Security designed in, not added on
We build on zero-trust principles - nothing is trusted just because it is inside our network - and protect your data at every step.
Encrypted everywhere
Your data is encrypted in transit and at rest - between your visitors and us, between our own services, on our disks and in our backups.
Zero-trust access
Our network opens no inbound web ports to the internet; sites are reached through encrypted tunnels that our platform dials out over. Every person and every service is granted access to only what it needs, and internal tools are never on the public internet.
Each client isolated
Each client's workloads run in their own isolated space, unable to reach another client's services or data.
Secrets in HashiCorp Vault
Passwords, keys and certificates live in HashiCorp Vault, never in code. Automated jobs receive short-lived credentials that expire within hours, and sensitive operations need a named person's approval.
Least privilege
Every automated job runs under its own machine identity and holds only the access it needs, for only as long as it needs it.
Protected changes
The code that runs your site is protected, and our secrets vault refuses credentials to anything that is not.
Privacy by default
Your visitors' data belongs to you, and it stays close to home.
Analytics without cookies
Visitor analytics run on our own servers, set no cookies, never follow people across other sites and are never shared with advertising networks. No cookie banner needed.
UK data
Your data is hosted in the UK, on a platform built in Sheffield.
No third-party trackers
We do not add third-party trackers or advertising scripts to the sites we host.
Built to stay up, and to recover
We run the platform for very high reliability and agree service levels with each client to suit their system.
Redundant by design
Sites run on a cluster of physical servers with a highly available control plane, replicated storage and replicated databases, so a single failed machine does not take your site down.
Watched around the clock
Automated checks run every day, your site is monitored from outside our network, and we are alerted straight away when something fails - including if the monitoring itself stops.
Backups you can rely on
Backups run automatically, are encrypted, kept off-site and regularly restore-tested, so we know they work before we ever need them.
Recovers by itself
After a power or network interruption the platform brings itself back without waiting for a person.
Transparent by habit
We write down how the platform works and why we made each decision, and this page describes it as it is designed to run. If you want to know more about any part of it, ask us - we are happy to go into detail.