Substratum.cloud

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ADR 08: Hosting and Frontend Stack ​

Status: Accepted Date: 2026-04-09

Context ​

We need to define the infrastructure and frontend framework for Substratum v1.0.

The architecture requires:

  1. P2P Backbone: Cloud nodes (the Global Triangle) that can maintain persistent, long-lived TCP/QUIC connections for libp2p and handle significant bandwidth without unpredictable egress costs.
  2. SaaS UI: A web dashboard that is lightweight, performant, and avoids heavy JavaScript bloat.
  3. Blockstore: A highly redundant storage backend for IPFS blocks uploaded to the Gateway.
  4. Database: (See ADR 09: Database and ORM Selection).

Decision ​

We have selected the following stack for hosting and the frontend:

  1. Host (Global Triangle): DigitalOcean
    • We will use DigitalOcean Droplets to host the Rust libp2p daemons. They provide a predictable pricing model, generous bandwidth allowances, and excellent global data center coverage for our US, EU, and Asia-Pacific nodes.
  2. Frontend Framework: Mithril.js + Mithril Materialize
    • The SaaS dashboard will be built using Mithril.js with JSX enabled, styled with Mithril Materialize. It strikes the perfect balance between light and strong. While it has fewer out-of-the-box components compared to React or Vue, it is battle-tested, highly performant, and prevents the UI from becoming overwhelmed with JS bloat.
  3. Storage (Blockstore): S3-Compatible Object Storage
    • It is imperative that we have redundancy for the data stored on the cloud nodes. We will use an S3-compatible storage backend (such as DigitalOcean Spaces) rather than relying solely on local attached NVMe volumes.
  4. Database (Metadata & Billing): DigitalOcean Managed PostgreSQL

Consequences ​

  • Positive:
    • Predictable Scaling: DigitalOcean provides a stable, known environment for scaling the P2P nodes.
    • Performance: Mithril.js ensures the SaaS dashboard remains incredibly fast and lightweight, aligning with the project's ethos of efficiency.
    • Reliability: S3-compatible storage guarantees high availability and redundancy for user data before it syncs to their local Sidecars.
  • Negative:
    • UI Ecosystem: Mithril.js has a smaller ecosystem than React, meaning we will need to build more custom UI components from scratch.
    • Storage Latency: S3-compatible storage introduces slightly higher latency for block retrieval compared to local disk storage, requiring the Gateway to implement an efficient caching strategy.