How agencies keep client stacks from becoming a spreadsheet
Agency infrastructure often starts tidy and ends as a shared Notion doc of IPs, panels, and “ask Sam for the SSH key.” That works until someone is on holiday and a certificate expires.
A control plane does not replace your engineers. It gives every client stack the same shape: servers, applications, domains, backups, and a ticket when something is wrong. New teammates can see the same picture without a walkthrough.
Marketplace apps cover the usual client request list — WordPress, Ghost, Nextcloud, Umami, Uptime Kuma — without a custom compose file for each one. When a client needs something custom, Git deploys and Docker Compose still live in the same console.
Billing and plans keep the commercial side honest. A starter workspace is enough for a brochure site. A production client with backups, alerts, and a team can sit on Pro or Business without you inventing a new ops process.
If you already run twenty VPS boxes, you do not have to migrate them overnight. Connect the hosts you care about first, then move domains and apps as renewals come up.
More notes
From a bare server to production in three steps
Connect a host, pick an app or a Git repo, then attach a domain and certificate. The control plane keeps the rest visible.
Git deploys, domains, and SSL without the usual scramble
Build from a repository, point a hostname, and let the proxy issue a certificate. Then watch the release, not the terminal scroll.