Yes. Tindra is free to self-host under the Elastic License v3 with no event limits. The managed hosting service run by Blendbyte GmbH is paid, starting at $9 per month.

What do I need to self-host Tindra?

Docker 20.10+, a machine with at least 512 MB RAM (1 GB recommended), and PostgreSQL 15+. An included Docker Compose file provides everything including the database.

Why use Tindra managed hosting instead of self-hosting?

Tindra Managed is a good fit if you prefer not to manage backups, upgrades, or disk space; if your data must stay in the EU with a signed data processing agreement; or if a fixed monthly cost is preferable to owning the infrastructure. Every managed customer gets a dedicated container and dedicated Postgres instance.

Who is Blendbyte and can I trust them?

Blendbyte GmbH is a software and managed hosting company based in Berlin, Germany. The founding team are industry veterans who came together in 2015; the Blendbyte brand was established in 2020. They run Tindra on Tindra in production, contribute to open source projects including OpenBao, Vox Pupuli, and the PHP Foundation, and managed hosting is their core business with 50+ clients across 10+ countries.

FAQ

Q: Where does the name Tindra come from?

Tindra is Swedish for 'to twinkle or sparkle', the way stars do on a clear night. It reflects the idea of illuminating what's happening in the dark: errors in production, slow requests, log noise that would otherwise be invisible.

Q: Why build another error and performance tracker?

Tindra was built after years of using Sentry, which bills per event and can produce large invoices during traffic spikes. Self-hosting Sentry requires around 50 containers, gigabytes of RAM, and sparse documentation. No simple alternative existed that covered both error tracking and performance monitoring in a single, maintainable, resource-light package.

Where does the name "Tindra" come from?

It's Swedish. Tindra (pronounced TIN-dra) means to twinkle or sparkle, the way stars do on a clear night.

We liked the idea of something that illuminates what's happening in the dark. Errors in production, slow requests, log noise: all invisible until something shines a light on them. That's the job.

It also happens to be easy to type at 2am when something is on fire.

Why build another error and performance tracker?

We used Sentry for years. It does a lot. It also bills per event, and if you have a bad week (a spike, a bug in prod, a noisy dependency), the invoice notices. That adds up.

So we self-hosted Sentry. The documentation was sparse. Upgrades broke things. The stack is enormous, around 50 containers, gigabytes of RAM, multiple moving parts to keep healthy. Maintaining it became its own job.

We looked for something simpler. Something that covers the two things we actually needed, error tracking and performance monitoring, without a whole platform wrapped around it. We didn't find it, so we built it.

Tindra is one binary. One Postgres database. It deploys in 30 seconds and has docs that actually tell you what to do.

Is it really free?

Yes. Tindra is free to self-host under the Elastic License v3. You can run it on your own infrastructure at no cost.

The managed hosting service (run by Blendbyte) is paid. You get a dedicated container and database, EU data residency, and zero infrastructure to maintain. If that sounds useful, see managed hosting.

There is no event limit on self-hosted instances. Set your own RETENTION_DAYS and manage your own disk.

What do I need to self-host?

Not much:

Docker 20.10+
A machine with 512 MB RAM (1 GB recommended)
A Postgres 15+ database (or use the included Compose stack)

That's it. The Self-Hosting guide has the full setup with a working docker-compose.yml you can copy and run.

Why use managed hosting instead of self-hosting?

Self-hosting is free and works well. Managed hosting makes sense when:

You don't want to think about backups, upgrades, or disk space
Your data must stay in the EU with a clear data processing agreement
You'd rather pay a fixed monthly cost than own the infrastructure

Every managed customer gets a dedicated container and Postgres instance. Your data is never shared. Currently hosted in Frankfurt, Germany.

Who is Blendbyte? Can I trust you?

Blendbyte GmbH is a software and managed hosting company based in Berlin, Germany. The founding team are industry veterans who came together in 2015, and the Blendbyte brand was established in 2020.

We dogfood everything we build. Tindra runs on Tindra. Our other products run on our own infrastructure. We don't ship things we wouldn't stake our own uptime on.

We're active in open source. We maintain packages in the PHP ecosystem, contribute to the PHP Foundation, and are involved in projects like OpenBao and Vox Pupuli. Open source is not a marketing strategy for us. It's how we work.

Managed hosting is our core business. We've run infrastructure for 50+ clients across 10+ countries. We know what it means to be responsible for someone else's production system.

If you want to read more, blendbyte.com is a good start.

FAQ

Where does the name "Tindra" come from?#

Why build another error and performance tracker?#

Is it really free?#

What do I need to self-host?#

Why use managed hosting instead of self-hosting?#