About Cloudient

Our story

Cloudient was incorporated on 15 June 2011, but our roots go back further. The services we provide were first established in 1997, when demand for website hosting and email was growing and there were few providers. That experience — nearly three decades of deploying and operating internet services — underpins everything we do today.

Over that time the market has grown and consolidated many times. Most providers now offer a commodity service which does not provide personal or specialist support. We are pleased to have customers who have been with us since the early days, and we continue to build relationships with organisations who value a provider that understands their needs.

Our approach

Cloudient is established with a simple policy: we do not blame our supplier. If something goes wrong, it is always our responsibility. As we run our own infrastructure, we always know exactly where your data is and can act on any issue directly.

We focus on a small number of clients who know what they want and need a provider who can deliver it. This is not a mass-market service. We provide boutique, personalised support with direct access to the people who built and manage your environment.

Our business model

We charge for time and infrastructure. There are no hidden fees, no affiliate schemes, and no selling of your data. We never use your data to feed AI, big data analytics, or to monetise you in any way.

Our pricing is based on set-up costs and recurring subscriptions that reflect the true cost of providing a personal, managed service. This means our prices will not be aligned with bulk low-cost providers — but the level of service and expertise is not comparable either.

What we specialise in

Cloudient differentiates itself by offering customised solutions across the full stack — from the physical hardware through to the application layer. We are particularly capable of understanding and developing custom configurations where requirements are not met by the average marketplace.

Our core specialisms include open source application hosting (particularly Odoo Community), managed infrastructure with private networks and dedicated firewalls, ISP services with proper email deliverability, and VoIP telecoms with application integration.

This is valued by organisations who want to outsource the problem of domains, email, hosting and telecoms, as well as by agencies who have demanding clients and must be able to deliver what is needed.

Our clients

We work with high-growth companies, start-ups, small businesses, charities and foundations. These organisations demand dynamic and flexible technology, or find that commodity markets do not serve their needs well.

Our clients value the ability to scale and manage growth, deep automation, knowing where their data is, and being able to focus on their own business whilst outsourcing the technology.

Infrastructure

As with the first infrastructure deployed in the late 1990s, the hardware, architecture and deployment is directed by Stuart J Mackintosh. Software and infrastructure is open source, ensuring it is always maintainable and the mode of operation can be audited.

We do not rely on any cloud platform or proprietary software for our operations. The equipment operates from data centres in Europe, currently in France with UK locations planned. The choice to host in Europe is primarily owing to the stringent EU data protection framework, which provides strong safeguards regardless of where your organisation is based.

Partners

We are a small team but have built strong relationships with partners across a range of disciplines. When a project becomes greater than our capacity or beyond our capability, we can introduce and guide as required to ensure a successful outcome.

Our partners include web and graphic design agencies, software development companies, filming and photography professionals, legal and policy experts, and business and accountancy professionals.

We only partner with people that we know. If you would like to partner with us, assuming we are already familiar with each other, just ask.

Environment

Digital systems consume a great deal of power. Our approach to reducing environmental impact is straightforward: keep things simple. We do not process your data or sell to third parties, so there is no unnecessary processing in the background. Using open source software prolongs the life of hardware — there is no planned obsolescence. Good security practices also reduce power and compute demand.

Read more about our commitment to open source and how it shapes our approach.

Security

There is no such thing as "secure", but we all should do our best to guard against services being impacted by nefarious activity, data loss and unintended disclosure. Every security failure is ultimately a human error — whether a user has revealed a password, a developer has missed an opportunity to sanitise a process, or an implementer has left a door open in the infrastructure.

We take a proactive approach to security including regular code scanning, dependency checks, and infrastructure hardening. Our use of open source software means the full stack is auditable.

Find out more about our approach to security, password policies and responsible disclosure »