Private Cloud Software Solutions
Below are Rockhopper's preferred open source software solutions for most organizations' needs. Please let us know if your organization prefers different solutions.
Learn more about why your organization deserves a private cloud.
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Collaboration Solutions For:
By running this open source software on your own server, you do not need to pay for each of your users!
Instead of paying by the user, the server costs are based on your organization's overall usage. Depending on your organization's usage of the server, we may need to boost your CPUs, RAM, and/or hard drive size. We will have reasonably incremental options to grow the server with your organization.
An Alternative To:
- Google Drive, Docs, Spreadsheets, Slides
(Google Workspace starts at
$6.00 per user per month) - Dropbox (starting at
$15.00 per user per month) - Slack (starting at
$7.25-$8.75 per user per month) - Asana (more than 15 users starts at
$10.99-$13.49 per user per month) - Salesforce (starting at
$25.00 per user per month)
Google Workplace with 6 users costs more than an ONLYOFFICE server with Rockhopper
| One-Time Setup Fee | $35.00 |
| Monthly Tech Support Fee | $35.00 |
| Monthly Hosting Costs | $28.40 |
- $24.00/month for server with minimum specs
- $4.80/month for automated weekly backups
Collaboration Solutions For:
| Click for Documentation | YouTube |
| Password Management | |
| Sharing Passwords within Team |
An Alternative To:
- LastPass (for business plans start at
$4.00 per user per month) - 1Password (for business plans cost
$2.00-7.99 per user per month)
| One-Time Setup Fee | $25.00 |
| Monthly Tech Support Fee | $20.00 |
| Monthly Hosting Costs | $7.20 |
- $6.00 per month for server with minimum specs
- $1.20 per month for automated weekly backups
More Mattermost Resources:
Collaboration Solutions For:
| Click for Documentation | YouTube |
| Instant Messaging Channels with Threaded Chats | |
| Voice Calls and Screen Sharing | |
| Mobile Apps | |
| Desktop Apps | |
| Boards | |
| Playbooks |
ONLYOFFICE does include basic instant messenging for your organization to chat internally. But you might prefer something fancier, and the ability to send and receive messages through your smart phones. If so, Mattermost is a great alternative to Slack.
An Alternative To:
- Slack (starting at
$7.25-$8.75 per user per month) - Google Teams (Google Workspace starts at
$6.00 per user per month)
| One-Time Setup Fee | $35.00 |
| Monthly Tech Support Fee | $35.00 |
| Monthly Hosting Costs | $8.40 |
- $7.00 per month for server with minimum specs
- $1.40 per month for automated weekly backups
Collaboration Solutions For:
| Click for Documentation | YouTube |
| Video Chat Meetings |
Jitsi provides secure, more flexible video conferencing with end-to-end encryption. They have a completely free service that anyone can use at meet.jit.si. But for added privacy and control, you can run it from your own server space.
| One-Time Setup Fee | $35.00 |
| Monthly Tech Support Fee | $35.00 |
| Monthly Hosting Costs | $42.00 |
More Jitsi Resources:
Collaboration Solutions For:
| Click for Documentation | YouTube |
| Website Content Management |
WordPress is a content management system (CMS) that lets you build your own website or blog, and maintain the content.
An Alternative To:
- Hosting with WordPress.com (starting at
$4.00 per month) - Wix (starting at
$16.00 per month) - Squarespace (starting at
$16.00 per month)
| One-Time Setup Fee | $45.00 |
| Monthly Tech Support Fee | $35.00 |
| Monthly Hosting Costs | $7.20 |
- $6.00 per month for server with minimum specs
- $1.20 per month for automated weekly backups
More WordPress Resources:
Email Accounts for Your Organization
Because the spam-filled email ecosystem is a complex arms race, Rockhopper has better things to focus on.
But we are happy to help get your email out of Google's clutches.
|
Any project with Rockhopper's server management services
includes the setup and migration of up to 10
|
|
|
- OR - Standalone Email Setup & Migration Fee |
$60.00 |
Rockhopper Email Support Service
- Consultation to help you select the best email provider for you
- Help creating and managing email accounts, doing it for you if needed
- Migrate emails from old accounts to new ones (up to 10), if needed
Below are Rockhopper's choices for least bad email solutions for business. Our planning meetings will help you determine what is best for you.
For reference, Gmail for business costs
If you choose to use ONLYOFFICE, then most email providers will let us download emails to your ONLYOFFICE server. This means you won't have to upgrade your email storage by the user. Instead, we just boost the storage on your server for all email accounts collectively.
Runbox
- Based in Norway
- $1.66 per month for 2GB for the first user,
then $0.66 per user per month
or $1.25-$2.91 for 10GB, $2.08-$4.16 for 25GB... - Webmail. Can be accessed through desktop clients.
- Mail can be pulled into your ONLYOFFICE server!
- ikipedia
- YouTube How Tos
- Privacy Review, More Reviews
Protonmail
- Based in Switzerland
- $6.99 per user per month for 15GB
or $10.99 for 500GB - Highly secure webmail, and apps for Android and iOS mobile devices.
- Can be accessed through desktop clients. But cannot be accessed within ONLYOFFICE.
- Runs largely open source software.
- ikipedia
- YouTube How Tos
- Privacy Review, More Reviews
Mailfence
- Based in Belgium
- $2.50 per user per month for 5GB
or $7.50 for 20GB, $25.00 for 50GB - Webmail. Can be accessed through desktop clients.
- Mail can be pulled into your ONLYOFFICE server!
- ikipedia
- YouTube How Tos
- Privacy Review, More Reviews
Zoho
- Based in India, with data centers in the U.S.
- $1.00 per user per month for 5GB
or $1.25 for 10GB, $4.00 for 50GB - Webmail. Can be accessed through desktop clients.
- Mail can be pulled into your ONLYOFFICE server!
- ikipedia
- YouTube How Tos
- TechRadar Review, More Reviews
Server Hosting
Along with each software solution described above, the current raw server/hosting costs are listed. These are minimum monthly costs to run the software.
Some of these solutions are quite powerful and are best to run on their own server. But in some cases, more than one software installation can safely run on the same server, saving on monthly costs.
By default, Rockhopper Software Designs will rent server space for you on DigitalOcean. It is a top-tier web hosting provider based in the U.S., with data centers in New York City and San Francisco.
But if you want to rent your own server space on DigitalOcean, then we can help set you up with an account, and then manage your servers through Rockhopper's account. This will remove the monthly raw server costs from your Rockhopper invoices. Other than Amazon (AWS) and GoDaddy, we can probably work with hosting providers of your choice.
Hopefully in the coming years, Rockhopper can provide it's own server hosting based in western Maryland. But until we can offer local organic servers, DigitalOcean is a strong solution.
Website Domains
It only takes one domain name to brand as much of your software as you want. With one domain, many subdomains can be associated with different servers and software installations.
Most organizations prefer to register their own domain names, and Rockhopper Software Designs will work with anyone to point the appropriate domains or subdomains to our new servers.
If you do not want to deal with buying your domain, then Rockhopper can buy and manage that for you too. If you wish to transfer your domains to your own account with any registrar, then we will transfer it to you as quickly as possible.
When outsourcing your domain registrations to Rockhopper, you will only be invoiced the raw cost charged by Gandi.net . This annual cost will be added to one invoice per year. Here are Gandi's prices as of
| TLDs | Register | Renew |
|---|---|---|
| .com | $17.75/year | $17.75/year |
| .us | $15.50 first year | $15.96/year |
| .net | $18.50 first year | $18.96/year |
| .io | $39.00 first year | $55.00/year |
| .me | $7.50 first year | $26.80/year |
| .online | $3.00 first year | $30.46/year |
| .app | $23.29 first year | $24.96/year |
| .club | $21.20/year | $21.20/year |
Need More Technical Support?
Your organization might need a bit more than the basic installation and rebranding of your new software. Perhaps your software needs extra customization, or migration. Or perhaps your team may need some extra hand-holding while getting used to new software.
If so, we can discuss your needs and negotiate more hours of technical support at a sliding scale rate starting at $30/hour.
About Morgan Lesko
Founder of Rockhopper Software Designs
Morgan has been writing web-based software since 1999, and been managing full-stack web development since 2005. Since then, he has been passionate about using open source software solutions whenever possible. He has been based in Grantsville, MD since February 2020.
Rockhopper Software Designs
by Morgan Lesko
2005-2023