Orbit
What Is Orbit?
Orbit is Kapsule's git-based deployment platform: connect a repository, push a commit, and your app builds and goes live on its own URL with a free SSL certificate, no server to configure and no deploy script to write.
Everything you deploy with Orbit is called a project. A project has a production URL, a full deployment history with one-click rollback, optional staging and branch preview environments, and its own build settings, environment variables, domains and edge functions.
You reach it from Orbit in the KPanel sidebar, or directly at /orbit.
What Orbit Does For You
- Push to deploy. Push to your production branch and Orbit clones, installs, builds, packages the output and starts serving it. Most projects are live in a couple of minutes.
- Instant rollback. Every successful build's artifact is kept. Rolling back promotes an already-built version, so it takes seconds and never re-runs a build.
- Multiple environments. Production, an optional staging environment, and an automatic preview environment for every branch you push.
- Build pipelines. npm, yarn and pnpm are detected from your lockfile. Install command, build command, output directory, root directory and Node.js version are all overridable.
- Free SSL, everywhere. Your
kaps.runURL and every custom domain you attach get a certificate provisioned automatically. - Deploy locks and approvals. Freeze production during an incident, or require a human to approve every push-triggered deploy.
- A spending cap on every project. A default cap of US$63.16 of overage spend per month, with email alerts at 50% and 80%, so a runaway build loop cannot produce a surprise invoice.
Your Project URL
When you create a project you choose a Deploy URL slug, and Orbit gives the project a subdomain under kaps.run. A project with the slug my-app serves at my-app.kaps.run.
Branch previews get their own hostname derived from the branch name, in the form branch-<branch-name>.kaps.run. Non-alphanumeric characters in the branch name become hyphens and the name is truncated to 48 characters, so a branch called feat/new-checkout previews at branch-feat-new-checkout.kaps.run.
You can attach your own domain at any time from the project's Domain tab. See Adding a Custom Domain to Your Project.
The deploy URL slug is chosen once, when the project is created, and is not editable afterwards. Pick something you are happy to keep, or attach a custom domain later and use that as the public address.
Git Providers
Orbit connects to GitHub, GitLab and Bitbucket. Each provider is connected once per account and can then be used for any number of projects. Walkthroughs:
You can also start a project from a starter template instead of your own repository. On the New project screen, switch from Import Git Repo to Start from Template and pick one of the ready-made stacks (Next.js, Astro, Remix, SvelteKit, Nuxt 3, or an Express REST API). Orbit copies the template and deploys it immediately.
Getting Started
- Click Orbit in the KPanel sidebar.
- Click New project.
- Connect your Git provider, then pick the repository you want to deploy.
- Fill in Project Name and Deploy URL.
- Click Create project. Your first build starts straight away and you land on the project overview.
Finding Your Way Around a Project
Once a project exists, its pages are grouped into five sections along the top of the project:
| Group | Pages | What lives there |
|---|---|---|
| Overview | Overview, Docs | Live status, latest build, recent deployments, project health, your repository README |
| Deployments | Deployments, Releases, Branches, Pipeline | Full build history, release tags, per-branch state, the build pipeline view |
| Observability | Analytics, Web Vitals, Build Insights, Activity, Timeline, Status page | Usage and overage, real-user Core Web Vitals, build performance trends, audit trail, a public status page |
| Configure | Environments, Env vars, Domain, Crons, Edge functions, Hooks, Webhooks | Everything you set up once and rarely touch again |
| Settings | Settings | Build settings, runtime toggles, security, notifications, usage limits, danger zone |
Account-Level Orbit Pages
Some pages sit above individual projects, reachable from the buttons on the Orbit index at /orbit:
- Mission control (
/orbit/mission-control): a live console view of every project at once. - Queue (
/orbit/queue): every build currently running or waiting, across all your projects. - Usage (
/orbit/usage): build minutes and bandwidth for the account. - Env groups (
/orbit/env-groups): variables shared across several projects at once. - Tokens (
/orbit/tokens): API access tokens for CI/CD pipelines. - Insights and Search: build analytics across projects, and a search across projects and deployments.
Plans and Limits
Orbit has three plans: Launch (free forever, no card required), Liftoff at US$12.00/mo, and Apex at US$30.00/mo. They differ on how many projects you can run, how many environments each project can have, and your monthly build minutes and bandwidth.
Unlimited team seats and commercial use are included on every plan, including the free one. Traffic from denial-of-service attacks is never counted against your bandwidth.
Click See Plans on the Orbit index to compare and switch. The full breakdown is in Orbit Plan Limits.
The free Launch plan is genuinely free rather than a trial. It has no expiry, no card requirement, and commercial use is allowed. It is a reasonable permanent home for a single small site.