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What is the Speckle Server?

Speckle Cloud is the standard deployment for most organisations. This section is for readers who have deliberately chosen to operate Speckle infrastructure themselves, whether because doing so creates architectural value or because a concrete requirement calls for customer-controlled infrastructure. Start with Choosing a Speckle Deployment if you have not yet made that decision. The Speckle Server is a complete solution that provides:
  • Data Storage & Management: Secure storage for your 3D models and project data
  • User Authentication: Built-in user management and access control
  • API Services: REST and GraphQL APIs for integrations
  • Web Interface: Complete web application for managing projects
  • 3D Viewer: Integrated 3D visualization and collaboration tools
  • Real-time Collaboration: Live updates and team coordination features

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When Self-Hosting Creates Value

Open-source self-hosting can be a rational production architecture. It is appropriate when your organisation values control over the infrastructure and deployment lifecycle enough to own the associated operations. Self-hosting can provide:
  • Change control: Decide when and how to deploy versions, upgrades, and migrations
  • Infrastructure and data control: Operate storage and processing within your architecture
  • Integration control: Build and operate connections to internal systems and infrastructure
  • Constraint satisfaction: Meet requirements that call for customer-controlled infrastructure
  • Performance control: Optimise the deployment for your workloads and network topology
  • Customisation: Modify and extend the open-source platform for specialised needs
Data residency can be one relevant constraint, but determine whether Speckle Cloud’s data residency controls satisfy it before treating self-hosting as necessary.

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The Operational Trade-Off

Self-hosting Speckle gives you full control, but it also means you are operating the platform yourself rather than using a managed one. In practice, that means:
  • You own operations: infrastructure, deployment, scaling, monitoring, backups, recovery, security patching, and incident response
  • You own product currency: upgrades, migrations, and deployment-specific compatibility are yours to plan and execute
  • You own integrations: ingestion and integration pipelines are yours to implement and maintain
  • No managed services layer: you do not get the continuously operated services that ship with Speckle Cloud
The open-source server provides the core platform. Speckle Cloud builds on that with continuously operated services and ongoing product development. If operating Speckle infrastructure does not create value for your organisation, Speckle Cloud is the recommended option because Speckle can keep the complete environment current and investigate support cases against a known deployment. See Choosing a Speckle Deployment.

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Getting Started

Ready to deploy your own Speckle server? Check out the Deployment Options to choose the right method, and the Getting Started guide for detailed instructions.

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Support & Resources

  • Community Forum: speckle.community
  • GitHub Issues: speckle-server issues
  • Documentation: Check other deployment guides for advanced topics
  • Professional Support: Available for enterprise deployments
Development vs Hosting: While the server code is open source and can be modified, this documentation focuses on hosting and deployment. For development and code modification, see the GitHub repository and local development guide.
Last modified on August 16, 2026