Simafri VPS for Builders
Simafri VPS for Builders is a free VPS for students and startups, also open to nonprofits teaching digital skills. Fondation Simafri offers you a VPS Pro 1 for 10 months, with root access, nightly backups and Full-Stack Assistance: a real server to learn on, launch your project or teach.
The offer
This offer is subject to available stock.
Included in your VPS
Connect with your own key, on a port of your own, and set up what your project runs on: Node.js, Python, PHP, PostgreSQL or a bot.
Your first deployment runs on the same Intel Xeon processors and error-correcting memory as our customers' production servers.
Your code and your data sit on datacenter NVMe drives kept in a mirror, and their integrity is checked constantly.
Experiment freely: an encrypted copy of the whole server leaves the machine every night, and the last seven stay available.
Show your project at a secure address: the certificate is issued and renewed for you.
Anti-DDoS filtering stays active on the network, to keep flood attacks away from your demo.
Our monitoring checks day and night that your server answers, and the alert reaches us first.
Stuck on a setting, a query or a bug? Tell us what you see: we find the cause and explain the fix.
Full-Stack Assistance
Learning, launching and teaching all bring questions no tutorial covers. Full-Stack Assistance is part of your free VPS: tell us what you are seeing, we look for the cause, whether it sits in the system, a database or your own code, and we explain what to do. The server stays in your hands, and you will know how to solve it the next time.
My school project runs on my laptop, but not on the server.
We compare the two environments, spot the version or the setting that differs and tell you what to change.
Our API is timing out, the day before a demo.
We trace where the requests lose their time and point you to the query or the setting to correct.
I need a workspace for each of my learners.
We suggest how to separate accounts, ports and permissions, so that each learner practices without touching the others' work.
I have never installed a database on a server.
We recommend the engine and the access rules that suit your project, and you put them in place with our directions, one step after another.
Eligibility
The program opens a limited number of places. This offer is subject to available stock.
What you do with it
A school project, the first version of a product or a training room needs a real server to exist beyond your own computer. Simafri VPS for Builders offers you that server for 10 months, on the hardware of our VPS Pro range.
Putting an application online is learned on a real machine: the system, the network, the database, the HTTPS certificate, the logs when an error shows up. You have root access, you choose your Linux distribution, and you run your school project, your portfolio or your API on it. When you hit a problem, show us what you see: we look for the cause and explain what to do.
A young startup shows its product before it sizes its infrastructure. Your first version, your API and your test environment run on a server copied every night and shielded from flood attacks. When the project grows, you switch to a larger VPS Pro with nothing to reinstall, and your data comes along.
Digital skills are best practiced on a real server: your trainers prepare their exercises on it, and your learners deploy their first websites and applications. Full-Stack Assistance supports your team when a question goes beyond the exercise.
How it works
Tell us who you are: your institution, your startup and its founder, or your nonprofit, with the project you want to run.
The Foundation verifies your identity and your eligibility, then gets back to you.
You add your public SSH key in your my.simafri.com account. The connection command appears there as soon as the server is live.
In return
From startups and nonprofits, one line on their website:
Hosting sponsored by Simafri
From students, we ask nothing.
After the 10 months
We let you know thirty days before the gift ends. You can continue at the regular rate; otherwise, your data is returned to you.
The server in detail
Simafri VPS for Builders gives you a genuine VPS Pro 1: the size we sell to our customers, on the same components.
Frequently asked questions
For 10 months: Fondation Simafri covers the VPS Pro 1 for that whole period. Thirty days before the gift ends, we write to you: you carry on at the regular rate, or you get your data back.
It is a VPS Pro 1: 1 vCPU, 2 GB of memory and 20 GB of NVMe storage. Root access, one encrypted backup per night, anti-DDoS filtering, availability monitoring and Full-Stack Assistance all come with it.
Students enrolled at an educational institution, young startups with a named founder and a real project, and registered nonprofits that teach digital skills. The number of places is limited. This offer is subject to available stock.
Startups and nonprofits add the line "Hosting sponsored by Simafri" to their website. Students have nothing to add.
Full-Stack Assistance, included in your VPS. Ask your question or show us what you see; we look for the cause, from the operating system to your code, and we explain what to do. You apply the solution yourself, which is also how you learn.
You have four to choose from: Debian, Ubuntu, Rocky Linux and AlmaLinux. Root access then lets you add whatever your project relies on.
Nothing serious: last night's copy and the six before it stay available, encrypted, outside the machine. Ask our engineers to restore one, and you pick up where you left off.
Yes, from its first day online. The certificate is issued and renewed for you.
Through the form on this page: tell us who you are (institution, startup or nonprofit) and what you want to run. An email to fondation@simafri.com works too.
Contact
Fill in the form: Fondation Simafri reviews your request and gets back to you.
This offer is subject to available stock.
Simafri VPS for Builders
Request your free VPS
Introduce yourself in a few lines: Fondation Simafri reviews your request and gets back to you.
Thank you! Your request has been sent. We'll get back to you shortly.
Prefer email? Write to us at fondation@simafri.com.