Make the Open-Source Self-Hosted Ecosystem Stronger Together
You have put the work in to creating an awesome web application while we put the work into automating away all the parts that your users hate: installation, maintenance, updates, backups, DNS, and server-security.
Working together: you become accessible to more users because we automate the operational complexity! Join a growing community dedicated to user freedom and digital ownership.
Why Partner with Nassella?
- Increase adoption through easy deployments
- Reach more users who prefer self-hosting
- Reduce installation friction and support requests
- Grow awareness through joint marketing
- Receive compatibility testing and release validation
Choose your partnership level
Level
Verified
$0
Requirements:
- Open source license
- Stable release
- Official deployment maintained
- Passes automated install testing
- Security best practices
Benefits:
- Verified Badge
- Listed in Nassella App Catalog
- Official Install Page
- Automated Compatibility Testing
- Install usage analytics
Free to join!
Partner
$2-10k/yr
Everything in Verified plus:
Requirements:
- Official deployment maintained jointly
- Engineering contact
- Reciprocal website links
- Joint announcement
- Annual financial contribution (or equivalents)
Benefits
- Blog posts
- Newsletter introduction
- Launch support
- Early compatibility testing
- Joint webinars
- Shared roadmap discussions
$2,000-10,000/year or equivalent contributions*
Premier Partner
$15-50k/yr
Everything in Partner plus:
Requirements:
- Significant annual financial contribution (or equivalents)
Benefits
- Dedicated success manager
- Quarterly roadmap meetings
- Co-branded landing pages
- Case studies
- Performance optimization
- Launch campaigns
- Speaking & Conferences collaboration opportunities
- Enterprise referrals
$15,000-50,000/year or equivalent contributions*
Interested in becoming a partner? I’d love to hear from you! Reach out at nassella [at] thintz.com
* equivalent contributions can include: engineering time, documentation, etc
Who Should Apply?
We are looking for:
- Open-source applications that can be self-hosted
- Infrastructure and security projects
- Identity providers
- Monitoring and observability tools
- Database and storage projects
- Backup solutions
- Privacy-focused software
We especially value projects that share our commitment to respecting users and data privacy.
Verification Process
Every verified application is reviewed to ensure users receive a deployment that is reliable, maintainable, and compatible.
- Official deployment configuration review
- Compatibility testing
- Ongoing validation against new Nassella releases
- Listing in the application catalog
- Added to anonymized install analytics dashboard
Built for the Open Source Ecosystem
The partnership program is designed to strengthen the entire open source ecosystem — not to create exclusivity.
Applications remain fully independent. Partners retain ownership of their projects, branding, and communities. Nassella just makes it easier for people to deploy, maintain, and use those applications on an ongoing basis.
Our Commitment to Partners
- No “pay-to-play” requirements for inclusion
- Open-source projects can always become verified partners at no cost
- Partners maintain full ownership over their IP and branding
- Integrations are developed in the open
- No exclusive partnerships that limit user choice
About the Creator: Thomas Hintz
Thomas published their first open source application on sourceforge in 2004 and has been an open source creator, maintainer, and advocate ever since, publishing numerous open source libraries and projects.
- Engineering Manager at OptHealth & FastAF
- Software Engineer at Zillow & Franz
- Author of Foundations of High-Performance React
- Host of The React Show Podcast
- Technical and educational speaker
A worker’s cooperative, not just another startup.
Our long-term goal is to form a worker’s cooperative with governance that prioritizes users, contributors, and long-term sustainability over acquisitions or venture-backed growth.
FAQ’s
Do we need to be open source?
Yes. At Nassella we believe the only way to fully respect the people that use our software is to ensure that the code is freely available for people to inspect and modify.
Can commercial open-core projects apply?
Yes! However, we will likely only be able to directly provide support for running the open-source part of the application on Nassella.
Does Verified require payment?
No. All open-source applications that meet the Verified requirements will always be free to join without payment.
What qualifies as “equivalent contributions” in-lieu of payment?
We understand that many open source projects don’t have a lot of money and are instead a “labor of love”. We want those projects to have the opportunity to be strong partners in the ecosystem as well. We are open to any alternative contributions that provide benefits for everyone which could include engineering time relevant to partner project, documentation, how-to’s, webinars, etc. If you have ideas, we’d love to chat about them with you!
Who maintains the deployment definition?
For the Partner and Premier levels, we at Nassella commit to maintaining the deployment definition to ensure consistency and quality with direct input from partner projects. For Verified, we will also maintain the deployment definition as long as we have the resources. However, we welcome all partner and external contributions!
How are compatibility tests run?
Currently, we manually verify all applications whenever there are any changes to Nassella or the partner application. Over time we plan to incorporate the manual tests we develop into an automated suite as well as run any partner application automated test suites. Either way, we will always keep in contact with partners about any issues we discover.
Can we leave the program later?
Yes! At Nassella, no-one is ever “locked in”. You can leave at any time and any monetary contributions can be refunded on a pro-rated basis.
How is privacy maintained for the usage analytics?
Nassella only has access to which apps are installed through the hosted control-plane, which app version, and on how many instances. All other data is private to user’s instances and Nassella does not have visibility. But we do provide aggregate installation statistics such as how many installs each version of an app has.
Help make self-hosting easier for everyone
Whether you are maintaining a small open-source project or a widely used product, we’d love to explore how we can work together to make deployment better for everyone.