The alpha
The terms in short
Section titled “The terms in short”- Free. pbx-hub costs nothing during the alpha. Hetzner bills the servers in your projects to your Hetzner account.
- Open registration. Anyone can register; there is no invitation.
- Seats. I reserve the right to close new registrations at any time and to limit the alpha to a number of seats.
- A fixed period. The alpha ends on 31 March 2027, the end date of every alpha licence key. The hub tells you 14 days ahead.
- For testing only. Not for workloads you depend on.
Pre-register
Section titled “Pre-register”Registration opens in the browser with pbx login. Until then, write to register@mitjamartini.com with the subject "pbx-hub alpha pre-registration". I write back when registration opens.
Limits
Section titled “Limits”| Limit | Enforced by | |
|---|---|---|
| Runtime | Podman servers only; k3s clusters are refused | the hub |
| Production and staging servers | at most 3 per hub | the hub, from the signed licence |
| Twins | at most 3 at once; 4 hours by default, at most 72 (24 for a copy of production’s data) | the hub |
| Cloud | Hetzner Cloud; twins in a second project | pbx up and the hub |
| Period | until 31 March 2027 | the licence key’s end date |
When the alpha ends
Section titled “When the alpha ends”After 31 March 2027 the hub keeps backups, restores, revoking access, deleting, export and security updates. It refuses new servers and new twins. The servers you have stay managed.
Where this stands
Section titled “Where this stands”Nothing is released yet. As of 20 October 2026:
| Part | Status |
|---|---|
| The hub, its portal and API, Podman hosts | Built tested on Hetzner Cloud |
| Signed releases and host updates | Built tested in a lab and on Hetzner Cloud |
SSH logins and podman --remote on request | Built tested on Hetzner Cloud |
| Twins and recovery tests | Built tested on Hetzner Cloud |
| A twin’s data: seed data from Git, a masked copy of production on purpose | Built tested in a lab |
| Coding agents’ keys, their ceiling and a person’s approvals | Built tested in a lab |
| The server limit and the licence check | Built tested in a lab |
| The hub’s backup to your bucket and its restore onto a new server | Built tested in a lab |
pbx: login, up, open, hosts, twins, devices, approvals | Built tested against a lab; not released |
pbx: agent mode, several hubs, one shared link while pbx open runs, twins’ web access and data | Built tested against a hub in the test process, not in a lab; not released |
| Device keys in the TPM on Windows and Linux | Built not released |
Device keys in the Secure Enclave on macOS (Touch ID) for pbx | In progress |
| TLS between hosts and hub | Built tested in a lab, not yet on Hetzner Cloud |
pbx up on Hetzner Cloud: the release signing keys, one full test run | In progress |
Registration and licences in the browser for pbx login | In progress |
Signed downloads of pbx (install script, Homebrew, winget) | In progress |
| Reaching a twin’s web app through the hub (names, certificate, access links) | Built tested in a lab, not yet on Hetzner Cloud; not released |
“Tested on Hetzner Cloud” means a lab run on real Hetzner servers on 20 October 2026; “in a lab” means ownpaas’s lab on a Mac. Neither is a production commitment.
Why the label
Section titled “Why the label”The EU’s Cyber Resilience Act (Art. 4(2)) allows unfinished software to be made available if it is available only for a limited period required for testing, carries a visible sign that it does not meet the Act’s requirements, and is not available for other purposes. The alpha is shaped to fit: a fixed end date, the label on every page of this site, in pbx status, on every page of the hub’s portal and in the description of its tools, and use for testing only. This is not legal advice.