# LayerRail: an open cloud with budgets on rails

Why we are building an open source cloud where compute, networking, managed services, and cost records live in one project-centered console.

Source: https://layerrail.com/blog/introducing-layerrail
Author: Mayowa Oladosu
Published: 2026-07-01T00:00:00.000Z

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Cloud teams can launch infrastructure in seconds, but the story around that infrastructure falls apart just as fast. Who created this VM? Which project owns it? What has it cost since March? Answering those questions usually means stitching together a billing portal, a DNS dashboard, a deployment tool, and a provider console.

LayerRail is our answer: an open source cloud control plane where the resources and the receipts live in the same place.

## What you can run today

- **Virtual machines** — shared, dedicated, and burstable plans across the US, UK, and South Africa, with Ubuntu, Debian, AlmaLinux, and Rocky boot images.
- **Private networking** — subnets, default-deny firewalls, and load balancers wired from the same console.
- **Managed PostgreSQL and Kubernetes** — provisioned, monitored, and recovered on VM-backed infrastructure.
- **GitHub runners** — project-scoped CI compute billed by the minute.
- **AI inference** — open models plus premium frontier models, with a free monthly token quota per project.

## Billing that never surprises you

Everything duration-based is billed per minute and capped at 672 hours per monthly invoice window. Usage and pricing records sit next to the resources they describe, so a budget review takes minutes instead of a spreadsheet weekend.

## Open, and staying that way

The control plane is AGPL-3.0. You can read it, audit it, and run it on your own infrastructure with your own provider account. If you outgrow us — or just disagree with a decision — the exit door is part of the product.

Start at [console.layerrail.com](https://console.layerrail.com/), read the [docs](https://docs.layerrail.com/), or star the [repo](https://github.com/layerrail/layerrail).