Hosting & Cloud Operations¶

BNI operates a multi-cloud architecture optimised for cost at early stage, with a clear upgrade path as revenue and grants grow. AWS is the preferred deep-infrastructure provider given existing skillsets, supplemented by specialised free-tier platforms for edge delivery and app backends.

Guiding principles¶

Free tier first. Every service starts on a free or near-free tier. No paid infrastructure before there is revenue or grant funding to cover it.
AWS as growth path. AWS free tier covers early experimentation; nonprofit credits unlock meaningful capacity once BNI Foundation's 501(c)(3) is in place.
Right tool per workload. Static sites, WebSocket servers, SSR apps, and serverless APIs each have a natural home — forcing everything onto one platform wastes money and adds complexity.
Open source preferred. Fly.io, Railway, and Cloudflare Pages all have open pricing, no vendor lock-in, and CLI-first workflows compatible with the BNI toolchain.

Static Sites — Docs and Landing Pages¶

Documentation sites (all four MkDocs projects)¶

Host: GitHub Pages — already configured, cost $0.

All four MkDocs sites (big-nerd-idea, mpowerup, rlivn, toasterchef) deploy automatically via GitHub Actions on every push to main. No changes needed. See Dev & Docs Architecture for the full pipeline.

bignerdidea.com and bignerdidea.org (entity landing pages)¶

Host: Cloudflare Pages — free tier.

When the public-facing landing pages for BNI LLC and BNI Foundation are built, Cloudflare Pages is the recommended host:

Feature	Detail
Cost	Free — unlimited requests, unlimited bandwidth, 500 builds/month
CDN	300+ global edge locations — faster end-user delivery than GitHub Pages
Deploy	Git-integrated — push to deploy, preview URLs on every PR
Nonprofit	Apply for free Cloudflare Pro plan (~$20/mo value) once 501(c)(3) is confirmed

App Backends — Node.js, WebSockets, SSR¶

Each BNI application has a server component requiring persistent or on-demand hosting.

App	Component	Hosting
MPowerUP	WebSocket relay (Node.js)	Fly.io
RlivN	Fastify API	Railway
RlivN	Next.js admin portal	Vercel
ToasterChef	Colyseus multiplayer server (stateful WebSockets)	Fly.io

Fly.io — WebSocket and stateful servers¶

Recommended for MPowerUP relay and ToasterChef Colyseus:

Free tier: 3 shared VMs (256MB RAM each), always-on — no spin-down that would break persistent connections
WebSocket-native: handles long-lived connections correctly, unlike most free tiers
Deploys from Docker or a Dockerfile in the project repo
CLI-first: flyctl deploy from any terminal
Paid upgrade: ~$5–10/month per service when free tier is outgrown

Vercel — Next.js (RlivN admin portal)¶

Built by the Next.js team; SSR, API routes, and edge functions work out of the box
Free hobby tier: 100GB bandwidth/month, unlimited static requests
Zero-config deploys from GitHub

Railway — Fastify API (RlivN)¶

Free tier: $5 credit/month — sufficient for a small always-on Node.js service at early stage
Postgres included — relevant once RlivN requires a relational database
Simple railway up deploys; good developer experience with minimal config

AWS Path¶

AWS is the preferred provider for heavier infrastructure. Free tier provides meaningful runway before any cost.

Free tier summary¶

Service	Free allowance	BNI use case
EC2 t3.micro	750 hrs/month — 12 months	Single box for relay + Colyseus under PM2
S3	5GB storage, 20K GET requests — always free	Static assets, build artifacts, backups
CloudFront	1TB transfer/month — always free	CDN in front of S3 or EC2
Lambda	1M requests/month — always free	Serverless RlivN API endpoints
Amplify Hosting	5GB storage, 15GB bandwidth	Next.js SSR with CI/CD
App Runner	Pay-per-use (~$0.007/vCPU-hour)	Containerised Node.js, scales to zero

Practical AWS-only early stack¶

For teams preferring to consolidate on AWS from the start:

S3 + CloudFront        → static assets and backup CDN
EC2 t3.micro (free)    → MPowerUP relay + Colyseus under PM2
Amplify Hosting        → RlivN Next.js admin portal
Lambda + API Gateway   → RlivN Fastify API (serverless, scales to zero)

12-month clock

The EC2 free tier runs for 12 months from account creation. After that, a t3.micro is ~$8/month. Plan the transition to paid or consolidate workloads before the clock expires.

Recommended Architecture — Phase 0–2¶

flowchart TD
    subgraph STATIC["Static Sites — $0"]
        GP["GitHub Pages\nAll MkDocs docs sites"]
        CF["Cloudflare Pages\nbignerdidea.com · bignerdidea.org"]
    end

    subgraph APPS["App Backends — $0–5/mo"]
        FLY["Fly.io\nMPowerUP relay · Colyseus"]
        VCL["Vercel\nRlivN Next.js portal"]
        RWY["Railway\nRlivN Fastify API"]
    end

    subgraph AWS["AWS (free tier → nonprofit credits)"]
        S3["S3 + CloudFront\nAssets · Backups · CDN"]
        EC2["EC2 t3.micro\nDev / staging server"]
    end

    CF -->|"git push deploys"| STATIC
    GP -->|"GitHub Actions"| STATIC
    FLY -->|"flyctl deploy"| APPS
    VCL -->|"git push deploys"| APPS
    RWY -->|"railway up"| APPS

Monthly cost at Phase 0–2¶

Service	Cost
GitHub Pages (4x docs sites)	$0
Cloudflare Pages (2x entity sites)	$0
Fly.io (MPowerUP relay + Colyseus)	$0
Vercel (RlivN Next.js)	$0
Railway (RlivN Fastify API)	~$0 (within $5 credit)
AWS S3 + CloudFront	$0 (within free tier)
Total	$0–5 / month

Upgrade Path¶

When free tiers are outgrown, the natural progression:

Trigger	Action	Est. cost
Fly.io VM memory pressure	Upgrade to shared-cpu-1x 512MB	~$5–10/mo per service
Railway credit exhausted	Starter plan	$5/mo
EC2 free tier expires (12 months)	t3.small reserved instance	~$12/mo
Traffic growth on docs/landing	Cloudflare Pro (or nonprofit free)	$0–20/mo
Team grows to 3+ backend services	Consolidate onto AWS ECS Fargate	Pay per use

Nonprofit Credits — Unlock at Phase 5¶

Once BNI Foundation receives its 501(c)(3) determination letter, apply immediately:

Program	Value	Action
AWS for Nonprofits	Up to $5,000 in credits	Apply at aws.amazon.com/nonprofits
Google Cloud for Nonprofits	$10,000+ in credits	Apply via Google for Nonprofits
Cloudflare for Teams (nonprofit)	Free Pro plan	Apply at cloudflare.com/galileo
GitHub for Nonprofits	Free Teams plan	Convert existing paid plan
MongoDB Atlas for Nonprofits	Free M10 cluster	Apply at mongodb.com/nonprofit

AWS nonprofit credits alone will cover BNI's infrastructure cost for 1–2 years at early-stage usage. See Formation Timeline — Phase 5 for the full set of actions triggered by the determination letter.