Types of Installations
There are two ways to install applications in CNAP:Product-Based Installations
Product-based installations are created when customers purchase your products through the marketplace or when you manually install a product from your dashboard. These installations:- Pricing optional - Can include Stripe integration for customer billing, or be deployed manually without pricing
- Customer-facing - Each installation serves a customer (paying or manually deployed)
- Managed through products - The product is linked to a template which defines what gets installed
- Flexible deployment - Created automatically when customers purchase, or manually deployed from your dashboard
| Example | Description |
|---|---|
| Custom applications | Applications you build and sell to customers (the most common use case). Each customer gets their own isolated instance of your software. |
| Managed open-source software | Self-hosted applications offered as dedicated managed services—project management (Plane, Taiga), CRMs (Twenty), or collaboration tools (Mattermost, Discourse). |
| Game servers | Dedicated game server instances for multiplayer games, each customer gets their own server. |
| Database-as-a-Service | Dedicated database instances for each customer with their own data and configuration. |
| Workflow automation | Dedicated instances of automation platforms like n8n, Windmill, or Activepieces for each customer. |
| Development environments | Per-customer development or staging environments with isolated resources. |
Direct Installations
Direct installations (also called standalone installs) let you install applications without creating a product or configuring pricing. These installations are perfect for supporting systems, internal tools, and infrastructure components that your products depend on. Examples of direct installations:| Example | Description |
|---|---|
| Shared databases | A PostgreSQL or MySQL database that serves multiple customer installations (one database installation shared across many customers). |
| Monitoring systems | Grafana, Prometheus, or other observability tools for tracking your infrastructure. |
| Analytics tools | Self-hosted PostHog, Plausible, or other open-source analytics platforms that customer installations send data to. |
| API gateways | Cloudflare Tunnel, NGINX, or other gateway controllers that route traffic to customer installations. |
| Community portals | Documentation sites, forums, or community platforms that support your product ecosystem. |
| Backend services | Internal APIs, webhooks, or microservices that power your products. |
| Frontend applications | Marketing websites, admin dashboards, or customer portals that don’t require per-customer billing. |
Some installations are shared across multiple customers (like a central database), while others are per-customer (like databases included in each customer’s product installation). Direct installations give you flexibility to choose the architecture that fits your needs.
- No product configuration - Install directly from your without creating a product or configuring pricing
- Immediate installation - Deploy directly without creating a product first
- Same capabilities - Still benefit from automatic package generation and versioning
- Template creation - CNAP automatically creates a template from your Helm sources
How Installations Work
Both installation types follow the same process:- Template Creation - CNAP automatically creates a template from your sources (GitHub repositories, Helm charts, Docker images, or custom Kubernetes manifests)
- Package Generation - A versioned package is generated from the template, bundling all dependencies
- Cluster Selection - The installation is assigned to a cluster (for products, this uses )
- Kubernetes Installation - CNAP creates the necessary Kubernetes resources and installs your application
- Lifecycle Management - CNAP monitors and manages the installation, ensuring it stays healthy
Both product-based and direct installations use the same underlying installation mechanism. The only difference is whether pricing is configured and whether the installation is linked to a product.
Installation Lifecycle
Once installed, applications are managed by CNAP:- Automatic health monitoring - CNAP ensures your applications stay running
- Resource management - Kubernetes handles resource allocation and scaling
- Update management - Update installations by modifying standalone installs or products, which modify the underlying template
- Isolation - Each installation runs in its own with dedicated resources
When to Use Each Type
These guidelines help you choose the right installation type. You don’t need to match all criteria—use one or more to decide which approach fits your needs.- Product-based installations
- Direct installations
Use product-based installations when:
- You’re selling software to customers
- You need billing integration with Stripe
- You want to manage installations through your marketplace
- Customers should be able to purchase and install your software
Related Topics
- Products → - Learn how to create sellable software packages
- Templates → - Understand how templates power installations
- Clusters → - Set up infrastructure for your installations
- App Sources → - Choose how to package your applications
- Marketplace → - See how customers discover and install your products