What Uberspace does

Uberspace is a German sole proprietorship founded in 2010 and operated from Mainz by Jonas Pasche, providing a universal Linux-based shared hosting platform targeted at technically proficient users — developers, system administrators, hackers, and privacy-conscious individuals — who prefer command-line control over managed hosting environments. Each hosted account, internally termed an 'asteroid,' receives full shell access, per-user isolated network namespaces, support for 15+ programming languages (PHP, Python, Node.js, Ruby, Go, Rust, Java, .NET, Erlang, Perl, Clojure, Prolog, GCC/C++), mail services, and multiple database backends including MySQL/MariaDB, PostgreSQL, MongoDB, Redis, and InfluxDB.

The current platform, Uberspace 7, is built on CentOS 7 with Nginx/Apache, per-user PHP-FPM instances, a custom mail stack using Haraka (SMTP), Rspamd (spam filtering), and Dovecot (IMAP/POP3), plus automated Let's Encrypt SSL provisioning. A rolling-release successor, Uberspace 8, has been in development since early 2025 and will introduce 'Marvin,' an internal account-configuration management component accessible via API. The company hosts hundreds of servers across multiple German data centers (including Frankfurt), each named after astronomical objects, with no external infrastructure disclosed beyond Germany.

Revenue derives from a pay-what-you-want model in which customers prepay hosting credits with no minimum contract; the company has historically recommended ~5 EUR/month per account and raised the suggested contribution to ~6 EUR in October 2025 to maintain sustainable operations. Supplementary revenue comes from paid storage expansion up to 100 GB beyond an included 10 GB. Distribution is exclusively self-serve via dashboard.uberspace.de, supported by a comprehensive manual and community-contributed how-to guides in Uberlab. The company has no external funding, no sales team, and explicitly targets modest organic growth (5-10%) rather than aggressive expansion.

Name

Uberspace

Legal name

Jonas Pasche

Website

https://uberspace.de

Company type

Private

Founded year

2010

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

11–50 employees

Short description

Uberspace is a German sole proprietorship founded in 2010 operating a universal Linux-based shared hosting platform for technical users, offering full shell access, multi-language support, and mail services via a self-serve, pay-what-you-want pricing model targeting developers and privacy-conscious individuals.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Headquarters

HQ city

Mainz

HQ country

Germany

HQ region

Europe

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2C

Offering type

Services

Cost components

Infrastructure, Personnel, Technology or R&D, Operations, Others, Marketing or Sales

Revenue model

1. Prepaid Hosting Credits: Customers prepay their accounts via bank transfer or cash by mail. No subscription required. Customers choose what to pay (pay-what-you-want model with recommended ~6 EUR/month budget price). Historical average was ~5 EUR per account, recently adjusted to ~6 EUR. No minimum contract, no hidden fees, first month free trial.
2. Additional Storage: Additional storage beyond the included 10GB can be purchased up to 100GB additional capacity.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion1 record

Distribution channels1 record

Marketing channels6 records

Core offering

Uberspace sells universal Linux shared hosting on a pay-what-you-want basis. Each account gets full SSH/shell access, an isolated network namespace, web hosting (Nginx/Apache, PHP-FPM), mail services (Haraka SMTP, Rspamd spam filtering, Dovecot IMAP/POP3), support for 15+ programming languages and multiple databases, automated Let's Encrypt SSL, and a base of 10GB storage expandable to 100GB. The product targets self-directed technical users who want unmanaged-style control without managed-platform constraints.

Product overview

Uberspace is a universal Linux hosting platform targeting technical users who prefer command-line control. The core offering is Uberspace 7, a shared hosting environment with full shell access, providing web hosting, email services, and database support. The platform offers a distinctive 'pay what you want' pricing model with no minimum contract. Supporting products include the Uberlab (community-written how-to guides), Uberspace Manual (comprehensive documentation), Dashboard (account management), Webmail (email client), Adminer and phpMyAdmin (database management tools), Rspamd spam filtering, and Status Page. Uberspace 8 is in development as the next-generation platform with a rolling-release model.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• Uberspace 7 Universal Linux Hosting Core paid offering: a universal Linux shared hosting environment providing full SSH/shell access, per-user isolated network namespaces, Nginx/Apache web stack, PHP-FPM, mail services (Haraka SMTP, Rspamd spam filtering, Dovecot IMAP/POP3), support for 15+ programming languages, multiple databases (MySQL/MariaDB, PostgreSQL, MongoDB, Redis, InfluxDB, SQLite), automated Let's Encrypt SSL, 10GB base storage, unlimited bandwidth under fair-use, and a pay-what-you-want pricing model with first month free. Targeted at technical individual users such as developers, hackers, bloggers, photographers, and self-hosters.
• Additional Storage Add-On Purchasable add-on that expands a customer's Uberspace hosting storage beyond the included 10GB, up to 100GB additional capacity, billed under the same prepaid credit model. Lets users scale storage for self-hosted content, git repositories, backups, or media without changing their core plan.

Segments3 records

Ideal customer profiles1 record

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Feature6 records

Partnerships

One partnership is on record.

• KINAST Rechtsanwaltsgesellschaft mbHminorOthersExternal data protection officer for Uberspace, ensuring GDPR compliance. Contact: Nordstraße 17a, D-50733 Köln, managed by Dr. Karsten Kinast.

Scale indicators4 records

Recent moves5 records

Expansion highlights3 records

Broad incumbents

• Strato: One of the largest German mass-market hosting brands (part of IONOS Group), offering shared hosting, servers, and domains to consumers and SMBs. Strato represents the incumbent, more productized alternative that Uberspace competes against for the same German-speaking technical buyer.
• IONOS (1&1 IONOS): Europe's largest hosting and cloud provider, offering shared hosting, VPS, dedicated servers, and managed cloud products. IONOS is the broad incumbent whose scale, bundled services, and pricing define the competitive backdrop Uberspace operates against in the German market.

Direct peers

• Manitu: German hosting provider with an explicit ethical/sustainability stance (green energy, fair pricing, German data centers). Manitu's philosophy — privacy-first, transparent, no-frills service for technical customers — is the closest analog to Uberspace's value proposition in the German shared hosting market.
• netcup: German virtual server, dedicated server, and shared/web hosting provider targeting individual developers and SMBs with low-cost, technically-oriented offerings. Netcup's product mix and target customer overlap directly with Uberspace's web hosting, mail, and database services.
• ALL-INKL: German shared hosting and domain provider serving small businesses, bloggers, and developers with PHP/mail/database stacks. ALL-INKL occupies a similar tier of the German shared-hosting market as Uberspace, serving technical-but-not-enterprise customers.
• Contabo: German-based hosting provider competing on price-performance for virtual servers, dedicated servers, and shared hosting with a developer/SMB customer base. Contabo addresses the same price-sensitive, infrastructure-aware audience as Uberspace, albeit with a much larger global footprint.
• Hetzner Online: Major German hosting and infrastructure provider offering dedicated servers, cloud, and shared hosting with a strong developer focus. Hetzner is also already a Uberspace supplier (hosts the status page), and shares the German/European data-sovereignty and developer-friendly ethos that defines Uberspace's positioning.

Emerging players

• Fly.io: Developer-focused application platform running workloads close to users across a global edge network. Fly.io competes for the same developer persona that Uberspace serves, but with a more PaaS-style abstraction rather than CLI-driven shared hosting.
• Bunny.net: Europe-based performance-focused CDN, hosting, and edge platform with a strong privacy and price-performance reputation. Bunny.net represents a newer generation of European infrastructure providers competing on the same developer-friendly, EU-sovereign axis that Uberspace emphasizes.
• Render: Modern unified cloud platform for developers offering web services, databases, and cron jobs with a developer-experience-led positioning. Render intersects Uberspace's developer audience but targets the higher-level PaaS workflow rather than raw shell access.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat4 records

Key risks7 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/ubernauten
• GitHubgithub.com/Uberspace
• Facebookfacebook.com/Uberspace-Fans-150649988337042
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/uberspace

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles1 record

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Uberspace