What Open Computing Facility does

The Open Computing Facility (OCF) is an all-volunteer, non-profit student organization at UC Berkeley, founded in 1989 and chartered by the Associated Students of the University of California (ASUC). It provides free computing services to UC Berkeley students, faculty, staff, and affiliates of affiliated institutions (LBNL, GTU, MSRI, UC Berkeley Extension), serving over 80% of registered student organizations and more than 5,000 students per semester through its printing service. The organization operates from a physical computer lab in MLK Student Union and a digital platform spanning web hosting, email virtual hosting, application hosting, SSH shell accounts, high-performance GPU computing, software mirrors, Mastodon, and a PGP keyserver.

OCF's technology stack is built on Linux, Kubernetes, Python, Nix, and free/open-source software. The hosting platform supports static content and PHP via virtual hosting on a shared infrastructure, while a separate apphost environment runs Django, Flask, Rails, and Node.js applications under systemd supervision with reverse proxy routing. Automatic HTTPS across roughly 500+ virtual hosts is delivered via Let's Encrypt, and the Mastodon instance runs on Kubernetes. Software mirrors host repositories for 70+ open source distributions (Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, Arch, FreeBSD, CentOS, Rocky, AlmaLinux, and others), accessible globally via HTTP, HTTPS, FTP, and Rsync.

OCF generates no revenue; all services are free to eligible users, with the only documented constraints being a 200-page-per-semester printing quota and 15 GB disk quota per account. The organization is funded through its ASUC charter, donations, and in-kind contributions (e.g., past Sun Microsystems hardware donations). Operations are sustained by an all-volunteer staff of roughly 100 active members recruited from the UC Berkeley student body via Discord, Matrix, IRC, GitHub, and weekly in-person meetings, with no paid technical staff. The organization is governed by a Board of Directors and has no external investors, venture capital, or parent corporations beyond its ASUC charter.

Name

Open Computing Facility

Legal name

Open Computing Facility

Website

https://ocf.berkeley.edu

Company type

Private

Founded year

1989

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

51–100 employees

Short description

All-volunteer, non-profit student organization at UC Berkeley (founded 1989) that provides free computing services—web/email hosting, printing, HPC, and software mirrors—to the UC Berkeley community. Funded by ASUC charter and donations; no revenue model.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Student Computing Services

NAICS

Computing Infrastructure Providers, Data Processing, Web Hosting, and Related Services (5182), Educational Support Services (611710)

SIC

Services-Computer Programming, Data Processing, Etc. (7370)

akta.pro primary industry

Virtual Desktop & Application Delivery (VDI/DaaS, Remote Apps) (BPAEAIAC)

akta.pro secondary industries

Private Cloud Networking & SDN/NFV Management (HDABABAK), Hyperscale & OCP Server Designs (HDABADAB)

Keywords

• Student computing services
• Free web hosting
• Open source infrastructure
• High performance computing
• Software mirror service

Headquarters

HQ city

Berkeley

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Offices2 records

Markets served

GTM type

B2C

Offering type

Services

Cost components

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

Revenue model

1. Free Services (No Revenue): All services are provided completely free of charge to eligible UC Berkeley community members. The organization is funded through ASUC (Associated Students of UC Berkeley) as a Chartered Program and relies on donations and volunteer labor.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion1 record

Distribution channels5 records

Marketing channels7 records

Core offering

The Open Computing Facility (OCF) is an all-volunteer student organization at UC Berkeley that provides free computing services to the university community, including a physical computer lab with free printing, web hosting for student groups and individuals, email hosting, SSH shell accounts on Linux servers, high-performance GPU computing, software mirrors for open source projects, and hosted instances of Mastodon and PGP keyserver. Services are maintained by student volunteers and funded through the ASUC and donations.

Product overview

Open Computing Facility (OCF) is an all-volunteer student organization providing free computing services to the UC Berkeley community. The offering is a unified platform of interconnected services rather than a single product. The core platform includes Computer Lab & Printing (physical lab space with free printing), Web Hosting for static content and PHP sites, Web Application Hosting for advanced frameworks like Django and Rails, Email/Virtual Hosting for student groups, SSH/Remote Shell access, High Performance Computing (HPC) with GPU resources, and Software Mirrors hosting 70+ Linux distributions. Additional services include Mastodon hosting and PGP Keyserver. These services share infrastructure including shared servers, authentication systems, and network resources, with web/email/app hosting forming an integrated hosting ecosystem.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• Computer Lab & Printing A physical computer lab located at 171 MLK Student Union at UC Berkeley, providing workstations, free printing services (200 pages per semester, 20 per day), scanning, and CD burning for UC Berkeley students.
• Web Hosting Web hosting service for student groups and individual students, supporting static content, PHP (WordPress, Joomla, etc.), CGI/FastCGI, with automatic HTTPS via Let's Encrypt for approximately 500+ virtual host websites.
• Web Application Hosting Advanced hosting platform for student groups to deploy sophisticated web applications using Django, Flask, Rails, Node.js, and other frameworks on a dedicated apphost.ocf.berkeley.edu server with systemd supervision and reverse proxy routing.
• Email Hosting Email forwarding and sending services for student groups with mail virtual hosting, allowing creation of addresses like [email protected] with web-based address management and SMTP support.
• SSH/Remote Shell Shell accounts providing command-line access to on-campus Linux servers for advanced users and developers, accessible via SSH at ssh.ocf.berkeley.edu with 15 GB disk quota per account.
• High Performance Computing (HPC) High-performance computing service on a GPU server for computationally intensive tasks, managed via Slurm workload scheduler and available to UC Berkeley students.
• Software Mirrors Free software mirror service hosting repositories for over 70-80 Linux distributions and open source projects including Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, Arch Linux, CentOS, Rocky, AlmaLinux, FreeBSD, and OpenBSD, available globally via HTTP, HTTPS, FTP, and Rsync.
• Virtual Hosting Virtual hosting service providing websites at group.studentorg.berkeley.edu domains for UC Berkeley student groups registered on CalLink, integrated with automatic HTTPS via Let's Encrypt.
• Mastodon Hosting Federated social media instance (Mastodon) for OCF account holders, running on Kubernetes infrastructure and available to users with an @ocf.berkeley.edu email address.
• PGP Keyserver Public key infrastructure service providing HKP and SKS-recon protocols on IPv4 and IPv6 for PGP key exchange at pgp.ocf.berkeley.edu.
• MySQL Database MySQL database service included with OCF accounts for web applications and data storage needs.

Quantifiable outcome

• Over 80% of UC Berkeley student groups served with web/email hosting
• +1 more outcomes

Named customers3 records

Segments4 records

Ideal customer profiles4 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Feature6 records

Partnerships

Three partnerships are on record, tiered core and minor.

• Let's EncryptcoreTechnology or Integration · 1 January 2016Let's Encrypt provides free SSL/TLS certificates enabling OCF to offer automatic HTTPS for all ~500+ virtual host websites and web applications hosted on their platform.
• Sun MicrosystemsminorOthers · 1 January 2006Sun Microsystems donated servers to OCF. The organization received a SunFire T2000 server and other Sun hardware for their infrastructure.
• Open Source Projects (Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, etc.)coreTechnology or IntegrationOCF mirrors over 80 open source software projects including Debian, Ubuntu, Arch Linux, FreeBSD, Fedora, CentOS, Rocky, AlmaLinux, and many others, providing the open source community with download infrastructure.

Scale indicators5 records

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights4 records

Others

• Internet Archive: Non-profit digital library offering free public access to digital materials and infrastructure. Comparable as a long-running (founded 1996) non-profit operating community-serving digital infrastructure, though focused on preservation rather than live compute.
• Let's Encrypt: Non-profit free, automated SSL/TLS certificate authority that OCF integrates with (since 2016) to provide automatic HTTPS for all hosted sites. Comparable as a community-driven open infrastructure non-profit serving the broader internet ecosystem.
• GitHub Education (Student Developer Pack): Provides free access to GitHub Pro plus third-party developer tools (cloud credits, hosting, domains) for verified students. Adjacent competitor for student attention on free developer infrastructure, though not a single integrated hosting platform.

Broad incumbents

• DigitalOcean: Commercial cloud infrastructure provider offering virtual servers, managed hosting, Kubernetes, and object storage aimed at developers and small teams. The commercial analog of OCF's hosting/app hosting platform, though serving a much broader and paying market.
• Rackspace Technology: Long-standing managed cloud and hosting provider offering dedicated servers, managed Kubernetes, and email hosting for enterprises. Commercial incumbent overlapping with OCF's hosting, email, and managed infrastructure services.

Direct peers

• MIT Student Information Processing Board (SIPB): MIT's volunteer student-run computing organization that provides computing services, hosts infrastructure, and runs projects for the MIT community. Directly comparable as the archetypal student-run university computing facility alongside OCF.
• University of Michigan ITS Student Services: U-M's Information and Technology Services provides web hosting, email, and shared compute for students, faculty, and student organizations. Comparable scale and breadth of services to OCF at a major US research university.
• Reclaim Hosting: Commercial provider specializing in hosting and domain management specifically for educational institutions, students, and faculty. Most comparable as a purpose-built hosting platform serving the same academic/student RSO customer segment that OCF addresses for free.
• Carnegie Mellon University SCS Computing Facilities: CMU's School of Computer Science runs student-accessible compute infrastructure, HPC resources, and shell accounts for coursework and projects. Similar in providing Linux shell, HPC, and web/app hosting for students at a single university.
• Stanford Student Computing: Stanford's student-facing IT services including web hosting, email, and shell access for students and student organizations. Directly comparable as a top-tier US university's student computing services program.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat5 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• GitHubgithub.com/ocf

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

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 Open Computing Facility