monolayer

Code locally with Next.js and the monolayer SDK spins up a zero-config local environment that mirrors production.

monolayer takes it from here

Live on AWS: monolayer deploys your full-stack app — frontend, backend, and infra — directly into your AWS account.

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Based on observed usage across early pilots and internal development teams.

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CTO, Startup

Agency engineer

All plans get full access to everything

• 1 user
• 1 project

• 3 users
• 5 projects
• Priority Support

• Unlimited users
• Unlimited projects
• Priority Support

monolayer runs entirely inside your own AWS account.

When you set up projects with monolayer, we provision everything —from environments to infrastructure— within your cloud, not ours.

This means:

• - While we handle complex infrastructure behind the scenes, your cloud environment remains under your account.
• - You benefit directly from AWS scalability, reliability, and pricing.
• - No vendor lock-in. monolayer makes AWS your platform — we just do the heavy lifting.

Currently, monolayer supports Next.js. Support for more frameworks is planned.

Based on your application code, monolayer provisions among other cloud resources:

• - Serverless functions for Next.js, background tasks, and image optimization.
• - Fargate tasks for your cron jobs.
• - Message queues for background tasks.
• - Databases (PostgreSQL).
• - Caches (Redis).
• - Object storage (S3).
• - CDN (CloudFront).
• - S3 buckets for static data, images, and cache.
• - DynamoDB tables for application cache and tasks running.

monolayer provisions infrastructure in your AWS account using secure and sensible defaults.

For each project, application infrastructure runs (or is attached) to private subnets in a VPC.

• - Databases and internal services are not publicly accessible from the internet.
• - Lambda functions and ECS containers are attached to the VPC, allowing controlled access to internal resources.
• - A shared NAT gateway enables outbound traffic without exposing services.

monolayer provisions infrastructure in your AWS account using secure and sensible defaults.

Application infrastructure runs (or is attached) to private subnets in a VPC. Each project has two VPCs: VPC for the production branch and a VPC for preview environments.

• - Databases and internal services are not publicly accessible from the internet.
• - Lambda functions and ECS containers are attached to the VPC, allowing controlled access to internal resources.
• - A shared NAT gateway enables outbound traffic without exposing services.

With the monolayer SDK package, you can define lifecycle workloads tied to specific phases of the deployment.

Each lifecycle workload runs an `npm` script from your `package.json`.

• - `bootstrap`: runs only once when a new environment is created. Ideal for creating schema, tables, or initial seed data. -
• - `beforeRollout`: runs before each deployment. Useful for applying database migrations or validating external systems. -
• - `afterRollout`: runs after the deployment. Use it to send notifications or cleanup tasks.

The monolayer control plane is designed to give you full visibility over your environments and deployments, providing a unified interface to manage your full-stack application.

Key features include:

• - Project Settings: Customize compute resources, database configurations, and other infrastructure-specific settings for each environment.
• - Environment Overview: Get a high-level view of your application's environments, including resource usage, health status, and active services.
• - Each environment comes with dedicated sections for app services, background jobs, cron tasks, databases, and storage (e.g., S3 buckets). You can see metrics, and check logs.
• - Deployments overview and progress: Track the progress of your deployments and easily review past deployment logs.
• - Environment Variables Management: Add, update, and manage environment variables for different environments — whether for production or preview setups.

Applications are deployed using a serverless-first architecture designed to minimize idle costs and scale with usage.

Here's how that translates to pricing:

• - Compute (Lambda, ECS Fargate): You only pay when functions or scheduled jobs run.
• - Storage (S3, DynamoDB, Logs): Charges scale with usage—typically minimal in development.
• - Database (Aurora Serverless v2): Used for Postgres; scales ACUs based on load. Preview environments are always set to min ACU = 0 (no idle cost). For production, we recommend setting a non-zero minimum for responsiveness.
• - CloudFront (CDN): Charges for data transfer and requests (low cost for global caching).
• - S3: Charged by storage volume and requests (used for static assets and file storage).
• - DynamoDB (Next.js cache): On-demand or provisioned pricing based on reads/writes and storage.

For each project, there's a baseline cost of ~$5/month for the NAT Gateway.

Redis workloads, backed by serverless ElastiCache, have a minimum ~$7/month for the storage.

The monolayer platform runs as a Next.js application fully hosted on AWS using serverless services. Key components include:

• - Builds run on AWS CodeBuild, triggered by your deployments.
• - Deployment orchestration is managed via AWS Step Functions.

Because monolayer is serverless, your running costs mainly depend on your usage, particularly the number of deployments you make. More deployments trigger more builds and deployment workflows, which drive the majority of compute costs.

We expect the costs to run a typical deployment to be in the low single digit cents.

You can add custom environment variables — API keys, feature flags, config values, etc. in the project page on your control plane:

• - For all environments.
• - Only for production.
• - Only for preview environments.
• - Per environment.

Changes are applied automatically on the next deploy.