freistilbox Pro
Architecture
With freistilbox Pro, you get much more than “a server”.
This managed hosting platform runs across multiple services and machines, integrated into a sophisticated architecture with redundancy built in at every level. Your sites stay fast and available as traffic grows. Our web operations experts handle everything behind the scenes, so you get that power without the complexity.
The same experts that build and run freistilbox are your support contact when you need help.
We target 99.5% uptime as standard, with a 99.9% guarantee on our Premium plan. In practice, our uptime monitoring shows we consistently exceed both.
The freistilbox Pro architecture matches what other providers offer in their “Enterprise” plans — but you’ll typically pay 5x less to get it.
Components
Edge Router: Receives incoming HTTP requests and forwards them to the right freistilbox cluster. Also handles TLS encryption, freeing up your application boxes to focus on delivering content.
Application Boxes: Your web applications run on one or more application servers, “boxes” for short. Running multiple boxes gives you load balancing and redundancy that most providers reserve for their Enterprise plans, if they offer it at all. With freistilbox Pro, it’s standard.
Content Cache: The Content Cache sits in front of each cluster, distributing incoming requests across your application boxes. It also stores delivered content in RAM, so repeat requests are served within microseconds, without touching your application boxes at all.
Shell Box: A dedicated Shell Box gives you direct access to your cluster — SSH in, manage asset files, run commands — without going through your web application. You’re never locked out of your own environment.
Cluster Services: Optional add-ons that extend your cluster’s capabilities, for example faster content search or reduced database load.
Platform Services: Some services are shared across freistilbox clusters, which lets us deliver high-performance databases and file storage at a quality level that would cost significantly more to run privately.
Curious about what the right setup looks like for your sites? Get in touch — we’re web operations nerds who love to talk shop.
Base configuration
Every freistilbox Pro cluster starts with 2 Application Boxes, giving all Pro customers load balancing and redundancy from day one.
Every cluster also includes:
- 256 MB Content Cache
- 20 GB shared network storage (each file stored as 3 distributed copies)
- 2 GB database storage
- Shell Box access for maintenance and job scheduling
You can upgrade any of these resources at any time, and optional Cluster Services let you extend your setup further as your needs grow.
Scaling your cluster
You can scale your freistilbox Pro cluster in two dimensions:
- Horizontal scaling: Increase the number of boxes (from 2 to 5) to handle higher visitor traffic and improve resiliency
- Vertical scaling: Increase the box size (from “S” to “XXL”) to handle higher resource demands of your websites
Roughly speaking, an S2 cluster suits one or two production sites handling a few thousand requests per month. An XL4 cluster, on the other hand, distributes traffic across 4 large boxes with plenty of capacity for resource-hungry applications handling hundreds of thousands of requests.
Not sure what you need? Get in touch — we’ll work out the right configuration together.
What’s in the box?
Each application box is defined by three resources. Choose based on your sites’ needs.
- vCPU determines how many requests the box can process simultaneously. More vCPUs help with traffic spikes and CPU-intensive operations.
- RAM is the most critical resource. Size it generously: PHP processes that run out of memory will cause content delivery failures.
- Local storage holds your application code. Asset files like uploads live on shared storage, so local storage consumption mainly depends on how many web applications you deploy.
For sizing options and prices, see our pricing overview.