Introduction to Octarq

Octarq is a self-hosted operations control plane that combines link management, custom domain email routing, and DNS orchestration into a single compiled Go binary with an embedded SPA administration dashboard. Rebuilt from the ground up to run as a single Docker image, it has no external dependencies, database configuration, or message queues to manage.

Note

Octarq is built on top of the open-source octarq engine (MIT). You will see mentions of octarq binaries and oct_* API tokens throughout the documentation—this represents the open-core system. Octarq adds the premium Pro and Elite observability and AI automation layers.

SaaS Cost Consolidation

Solo builders and small teams frequently suffer from tool fragmentation, paying multiple monthly fees for single-purpose SaaS subscriptions: link redirection, domain email hosting, server monitors, and spreadsheet expense logs. Octarq collapses these utilities into a single, unified control plane that you host entirely on your own infrastructure.

Tier Comparison & Features

Tier	Included Features & Value
Core (OSS, MIT)	Links, Mail, DNS, API tokens, Webhooks, MCP Server
Pro	+ VPS Monitoring, SSH Vault, FinOps, Multi-User / Multi-Org
Elite	+ AI Inbox, Telegram Briefings, Invoice OCR Ledger, MCP Agent

The core is a real product, not a crippled demo — you can self-host it forever for free. Paid tiers unlock the ops and AI layers and are delivered as an offline license key. See Plans for details.

Architecture at a glance

browser → host router
   ├─ /api/v1/* → JSON API (auth, links, domains, mailboxes, emails)
   ├─ /admin/*  → embedded React dashboard (SPA)
   └─ /{slug}   → 302 redirect + async click event
GORM ─ SQLite (pure-Go, default) or Postgres
DNS  ─ provider interface (Cloudflare, DNSPod)
Mail ─ Cloudflare Email Routing inbound + SMTP send

Continue to the Quick start.