Kitsu is a free and open-source software. It means that you can install it on your own and use it for free. This scheme works pretty well when you are a freelancer, a small studio or a non-profit project with no budget. It allows to get the right tools as soon as possible.
But if you are a bigger studio, you will need support and maintenance. If you have a critical project, your studio can't afford to be blocked. To avoid any issue, you need to maintain properly a complex web apllication. And, it's a full-time job.
That's why we provide a paid version of Kitsu where we take care of everything for you. We provide user support, maintenance, and hosting. We make sure that you start with Kitsu in the best conditions and that you don't face any issue during your production. We can even set tailor-made service agreements if you need them.
In this article, we list all the work required to run properly a Kitsu installation. So, you can have an idea of the duties required to run a Kitsu installation.
The open source version offers only a community support. It means that you rely on the community to help you when the are people available. But you can't expect a quick answer or be sure of its accuracy.
With a Kitsu subscription, you have access to our user support. We help you to solve your issues and answer your questions. We also provide you with a dedicated Discord channel to communicate with us. In case you face a bug that blocks your production, we can fix it for you.
Additionnally, we can provide your team with short training sessions to help them get started. Our team has a strong production experience and can give you some tips to improve your workflow.
We can develop new features too if you need them. If you notice room for improvement in Kitsu, we can work together to make it happen.
Last but not least, we help your TDs to take advantage of Kitsu for your pipeline. The Kitsu API is very rich and requires some knowledge to be used at its full potential.
If for any reason, you need to host Kitsu on your own servers, we can provide you with an on-premise installation with the same support and maintenance as the cloud version.
On-premise installations are more expensive than the cloud version because we need to maintain a dedicated infrastructure for you. But it can be useful if you have specific security requirements.
| Feature | Cloud | Self-hosted |
|---|---|---|
| Kitsu features | ✔️ | ✔️ |
| Community support | ✔️ | ✔️ |
| Service guarantee | ✔️ | ❌ |
| Strong security | ✔️ | ❌ |
| User support | ✔️ | ❌ |
| Technical support | ✔️ | ❌ |
| Priority bugfix | ✔️ | ❌ |
| Backups | ✔️ | ❌ |
| Monitoring | ✔️ | ❌ |
| Additional features | ✔️ | ❌ |
| Video processing queue | ✔️ | ❌ |