This page exists so the decision can be made in one sitting. Each option is described by what it gives you and what it takes, with no recommendation attached — because the right answer genuinely varies and we build all five.
All AI Hosting & Infrastructure →
| Criterion | Public API | Your cloud | Private DC | On-premise | Air-gapped |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Data leaves your perimeter | Yes | To your own tenancy | To your own rack | No | No |
| Frontier capability available | Yes | Yes | No | No | No |
| Choose the physical location | No | Region only | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Single tenancy | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Cost shape | Per token | Per token | Fixed | Fixed | Fixed |
| Capital outlay | None | None | Leased or owned | Owned | Owned |
| Vendor can deprecate your model | Yes | Yes | No | No | No |
| Works without an internet link | No | No | No | Yes | Yes |
| Operational burden on you | None | Low | Moderate | High | Highest |
| Time to first pilot | Days | Weeks | Weeks | 4–10 weeks | 8–16 weeks |
Work down the constraints in this order, and the answer usually falls out before you reach the bottom.
1. Is there a hard rule about where the data may go? A regulation, a customer contract, a classification. If yes, that eliminates options before anything else is considered, and no capability argument overturns it.
2. Does the system have to work without connectivity? A factory floor, a vessel, a remote site, an isolated control network. If yes, you are on-premise or air-gapped and the rest is detail.
3. Is the volume sustained and high? If yes, fixed-cost hosting will beat per-token pricing, and the crossover is worth calculating properly rather than estimating. If the volume is low or spiky, the API wins and will keep winning.
4. Does the workload need frontier capability for every request? Rarely true once tested, and if it is genuinely true then hosted is the answer. If it is true for a minority, that is a routing problem rather than an infrastructure one.
5. Is there anyone to operate it? The question that quietly decides more of these than the other four combined. If there is no team and no budget for managed operation, choose the option with the lowest operational burden that satisfies your constraints — and be honest about it now rather than in eighteen months.
If the system was built for it, yes and relatively cheaply. That means the model behind an interface, no dependency on a provider-specific feature, prompts and evaluation sets kept portable, and infrastructure defined as code. We build that way by default, because the most common regret we hear about is a system welded to a provider chosen in week one.
Most mature deployments do. Local for the bulk and sensitive work, hosted for the hard minority. That is the hybrid routing pattern and it is usually the honest answer to a question phrased as either-or.
We would expect it to split by constraint rather than by preference — regulated and high-volume work toward the controlled end, early-stage and exploratory work toward the hosted end. We would rather set out the trade-offs than tell you what is popular, because popularity is not evidence about your constraints.
Bring the constraints. Five options, a short conversation, and a recommendation we will argue against if you push back well.
30-minute technical call · no deck
What we built, what stage it is at, and a link to the live thing wherever there is one.
yourOS is an operating system with an AI at its heart. You talk to it like a person, out loud or typed. It makes your calls, plans your days and works on your projects with a crew of agents, on your own private server. Our own product, built from the first commit; the waitlist is open.
Website, backend and app assets for Sonora, a free AI sound-therapy app on iOS and Android published by Cognitive AI.
Brand, website, prototype, apps on five platforms, the AI backend and the algorithm-intelligence pipeline for Podswap, a social growth engine that runs without a human in the loop.
In closed beta: Roxy, a private AI assistant with permanent memory running on infrastructure the user owns. Brand, site, product, backend and conversational design.
Live at coherence.com: brand identity generated with AI agents we directed, the motion system and website for the group behind Sonora, AboutAI, WakeUp and MudShadows. Agent work remains in build.
Live at domainbooth.com for DomainBooth, a premium domain brokerage: a new animated mark, every page redesigned and rebuilt with designed mobile layouts, and a custom CMS for its sales record, featured names, press and enquiries.
Apps, platforms and campaigns for these teams, long before the AI work. Every one is written up on the work page — what we did, and where our part ended.
