What is SovereignStack?
SovereignStack is a complete, end-to-end business infrastructure platform that restores ownership, control, and economic viability to small and growing organisations.
It exists because the modern cloud model has quietly removed those things.
For SMEs, “scaling” now almost always means:
- per-user subscription costs
- vendor-controlled identity
- opaque infrastructure
- licensing constraints enforced by legal terms, not technology
- permanent dependency on hyperscale providers
SovereignStack is the architectural alternative.
The problem SovereignStack addresses
Small businesses today face a structural trap.
As soon as they grow beyond a handful of people, infrastructure and software costs begin to scale per person, not per capability. This is not an accident — it is a direct consequence of subscription-based cloud models and licensing frameworks.
Microsoft’s solution is Azure and Microsoft 365:
- infrastructure rented, not owned
- identity controlled by the vendor
- services priced per user, per month
- alternatives made legally or economically inaccessible
For large enterprises this works. For SMEs, it quietly undermines growth.
SovereignStack exists to remove that constraint.
What “sovereign” actually means here
In this context, sovereign does not mean isolated, anti-cloud, or anti-modern.
It means:
- you control the infrastructure
- you control identity and email
- you control data location
- you control routing and encryption
- you control costs
- you are not contractually forced into one vendor’s ecosystem
A Sovereign Stack is infrastructure you own and operate, using open systems, while still supporting modern application platforms.
The SovereignStack architecture
SovereignStack is intentionally layered.
Each layer replaces a specific dependency found in the cloud-first model.
Hardware ↓ Proxmox Hypervisor (clustered) ↓ Sovereign Infrastructure Services • Mail firewall (PMG) • Native Email (Postfix + Dovecot SNI) • DNSSEC + DANE • TLS automation (Caddy) • WireGuard private networking ↓ Application Runtime • Debian LXC / KVM • Docker for services and platforms ↓ Platform Layer • Drupal-based business platforms • CRM, commerce, workflows, APIs ↓ SME Business Operations • email • collaboration • customer systems • internal tooling
This is not a “home lab”. It is datacentre-grade infrastructure, scaled down to SME economics.
Infrastructure, not just applications
One of the key distinctions SovereignStack makes is this:
Docker runs applications.
SovereignStack runs systems.
Most engineers are trained to think at the application layer. Very few are trained to design and operate the layers beneath it.
Those layers — hypervisors, clustering, identity, mail routing, TLS trust, networking — are what make real businesses possible.
SovereignStack deliberately exposes and controls those layers, instead of outsourcing them to Azure.
High availability by design
SovereignStack is built around a real clustering model.
The reference deployment is Proxima Cluster v1, consisting of:
- Proxima-Alpha — primary compute
- Proxima-Beta — failover compute
- Proxima-Gamma — witness / quorum
This enables:
- high availability
- fencing and split-brain protection
- live migration
- predictable scaling
- hardware independence
This is the same model used by large enterprises, delivered without Microsoft, VMware, or cloud subscription costs.
Why this matters economically
Because SovereignStack is open-source and self-operated:
- there are no per-user licences
- no SPLA fees
- no CALs
- no forced subscriptions
- no hyperscale pricing model
A single enterprise server can host 20–40 SMEs with:
- platforms
- backups
- security
- VPN access
- business applications
That makes a completely different business model possible:
- predictable costs
- high margins
- scalability without licensing friction
- growth without penalty
SovereignStack is not anti-cloud
It is anti-dependency.
Cloud services still exist. APIs still integrate. Containers still run. Modern tooling still applies.
What changes is who controls the stack.
SovereignStack gives small operators and SMEs the same structural advantage large enterprises have always had — ownership of their core systems.
Why SovereignStack exists now
Linux survived. Email protocols survived. Open standards survived. Virtualisation matured. Hardware became cheap. Networking became simple.
What disappeared was the usiness model that allowed small operators to deploy these things profitably.
SovereignStack reconnects the technology to a viable economic model.
In one sentence
SovereignStack is a datacentre-grade, open-source infrastructure platform that allows small businesses to scale without surrendering control, identity, or margins to cloud vendors.