Introduction
Welcome!¶
Welcome to HOPE 2026! We hope you're having a good time. To start off this workshop, we'd like to introduce how this workshop will be run. There are three main parts to this workshop we'll describe below.
1. The Guided Docs¶
You're in the guided docs! These docs provide the general overview of Co-op Cloud as well as a guide to the technical aspects of the Co-op Cloud CLI (Abra) and how to deploy your first app.
2. The Wiki¶
The Wiki is a knowledge aggregation area for the workshop. To have continuity between participants (since this is a drop-in workshop) we're writing down questions, answers, resources, and discussion topics in the wiki so that new workshop attendees can quickly access what has been already discussed.
3. The Classroom¶
This workshop may be self-guided, but we're here for a reason! Feel free to ask questions to any of us, and we encourage you to speak with other participants.
Now that we know how the workshop is structured, we can start with the why of the workshop.
Background¶
What is Co-op Cloud?¶
Public interest infrastructure. An alternative to corporate clouds built by tech co-ops. It uses the latest container technologies and configurations are shared into the commons for the benefit of all.
Let's expand on what this means.
Public interest infrastructure
Co-op Cloud is not built for profit, for a specific group, or specific people. It is operated by the Co-op Cloud Federation, a federation of co-operative hosters who operate in the public interest.
An alternative to corporate clouds built by tech co-ops
Co-op Cloud aims to replace corporate clouds like Google services, OneDrive, AWS, etc. Rather than your data being owned, controlled by, and sold by for-profit corporations, Co-op Cloud provides a simple path toward self-hosting and data autonomy for individuals or small organizations.
It uses the latest container technologies
Co-op Cloud currently uses Docker Swarm as the orchestration layer to deploy service containers.
Configurations are shared into the commons for the benefit of all
Co-op Cloud uses recipes for different self-hostable apps, designed to accelerate deploying a service in a production ready state. Written in the compose spec, they define parameters such as secret management, backups, versioning, etc. These recipes are free and open to contribute to, enabling different forms of social organization to manage them.
Why Co-op Cloud?¶
We think the importance of Co-op Cloud comes in two parts. The first part is generic - it's a question of why self-hosting is important. The second is specific - it's how Co-op Cloud provides certain advantages over other technologies and services like Kubernetes or Yunohost.
Why self-host?¶
Technology is trending toward the total centralization and surveillance of data by corporate monopolies like Google and Meta. This trend, along with other private corporations building data analysis tools for law enforcement and state departments, empowers state actors to target a variety of groups from undocumented immigrants to political activists. Self-hosting helps resist this. When people control their services and their data, it takes a much more coordinated effort to access this data, making it infeasible for everyone's data to be process and analyzed in one fell swoop.
Advantages of Co-op Cloud¶
Co-op Cloud is more than just a container orchestration platform, it also defines a social commons approach toward creating, maintaining, and distributing Co-op Cloud recipes. This decentralized approach also encourages a democratic technological system, where more people and communities are capable of understanding and modifying the technologies they use.