If you searched “self-hosted POS”
That search usually means four things at once: you want the system of record to live inside your venue, a system that doesn't stop when the internet does, no monthly stack of rented tools, and hardware you control instead of a vendor's cloud you rent. cipher delivers those.
What cipher does not hand you is the part that makes self-hosting expensive: a codebase to patch, a server to babysit, an IT hire to keep it alive. cipher installs, patches, hardens, and backs up the stack — the continuity is yours; the maintenance is cipher's. That's the difference between self-hosted and hosted for you, on-site.
cipher isn't open source and isn't a codebase you run — it's a licensed, managed platform. It runs like a self-hosted system and is a vendor-managed local appliance: the third shape, not the self-hosted category.
On-premise, appliance-grade
- The system of record is a Linux server that runs inside your venue — the database and the application both live on-site, not in someone else's cloud.
- Every terminal and kiosk is a client of that server on your own network — the floor talks to a box in the building, not across the internet.
- The server runs a hardened, locked-down Linux build that cipher provisions, patches, and maintains — an appliance, not a machine your team administers.
Offline: what actually keeps running
- Orders, tabs, tickets, and clock-ins keep running through an internet outage — they run against the local database in the venue, so service doesn't stop when the connection does.
- Card processing resumes when the connection returns — card authorization runs through the processor, so the card line picks back up when the internet does.
The resilience boundary is the internet connection. cipher keeps the floor ringing through a WAN outage; it is not a claim about card authorization without a connection.
Cloud-optional, not cloud-dependent
cipher isn't offline-only — the cloud handles what belongs off-site: member portals, reservations from the street, off-site sync and backup. But the floor never waits for it. The register, the tabs, and the kitchen printers run on the box on-site; the cloud is where the off-premises work lives, not where the sale is rung.
Three shapes, compared
“Self-hosted” and “cloud” are the two shapes most POS searches assume. cipher is a third — it takes the on-premise, outage-surviving half of self-hosted and drops the maintenance half.
| Cloud POS | Open-source self-hosted | cipher | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Where the data lives | The vendor's cloud | A server you provision | A server inside your venue |
| When the internet drops | Register degrades or stops | Keeps running — if you built it to | Orders, tabs, tickets, clock-ins keep running; card auth resumes on reconnect |
| Who maintains it | The vendor | You, or the IT hire you staff | cipher — installed, patched, hardened, backed up |
| What you're buying | A subscription seat | A codebase | A supported appliance |
Same answer as the home FAQ, in a table: what kind of POS is cipher — neither enterprise contract nor open-source project, but a turnkey local appliance. For the parts under the surface — the local-first database, the kiosk build, full-disk encryption — see the architecture page.
See it on your floor
If self-hosted was on your list because you want the data and the continuity on-site, that's exactly what cipher is built to give you — without the server-room part. Apply for a walkthrough and we'll walk your floor.