CatchupWeb Open Line · Johannesburg · worldwide

Don’t buy the OS.
Buy the estate.

South Africa’s open-source disruptor for Linux, Unix and private AI. One rand retainer. Mixed distros first-class. Out-of-bundle products on the same SLA — nginx, Postgres, WordPress, Docker, Kubernetes, Ollama, Pi fleets. Not a vendor SKU. The stack you actually run.

Published prices Named senior engineer SAST hours No per-user tax
See retainers Run a read-only audit Start on Open Workshop

The gap

Vendors sell the licence.
We sell the line.

What the market does

  • Canonical: Ubuntu only, USD, up to ~$3,400/server/year for 24/7 full support
  • Red Hat / SUSE: sockets, SKUs, mixed Debian/Pi is “best effort”
  • SA MSPs: R400–R1,000 per Windows user — wrong unit for Linux shops
  • Patch vendors: cheap CVE streams, nobody on the incident

What Open Line is

  • Estate retainer, not per-user, not per-socket
  • Debian, Ubuntu, Raspberry Pi OS, Rocky, Alma, Unix — first-class
  • Out-of-bundle apps on the same ticket
  • Private AI and edge fleets as add-on SKUs, not a science project

We do not replace Ubuntu Pro, TuxCare or Red Hat indemnification. Compliance estates bring their own patch stream. CatchupWeb operates the mixed stack and answers the pager.

Retainers · excl. VAT · SAST

Sweet-spot prices.
Hours included so scope does not melt.

01 · Bench

Open Bench

Starting from R4,950

Up to 5 nodes. The cupboard ISP, two VPS and a Pi.

  • Weekdays 08:00–17:00 SAST
  • P1 in 4 hours · P2 next business day
  • 4 remote hours included
  • OS + in-box stack (see catalogue)
  • Monthly patch window + backup verify
Request Bench
02 · The spot

Open Workshop

Starting from R9,850

Up to 15 nodes. The SME that fled CentOS and still runs production.

  • 08:00–20:00 weekdays + Saturday morning
  • P1 in 1 hour · P2 in 4 hours
  • 10 remote hours included
  • Single Kubernetes cluster included
  • Quarterly health check · WhatsApp + ticket
Start Workshop
03 · Line

Open Line

Starting from R19,500

Up to 40 nodes or one production cluster. Named engineer.

  • Weekday 24h (24/5)
  • P1 in 30 minutes
  • 20 hours included
  • Named senior on the invoice
  • 24/7 night cover +40% when the rota exists
Request Line

Extra hours R1,650. 10-hour incident pack R11,500 (90 days). Month-to-month at list. 12 months −10%. Nodes = physical, VM, LXC or Pi.

Covered catalogue v1

In the box. Out of bundle.
Still one ticket.

First-class OS

Ubuntu, Debian, Raspberry Pi OS, Armbian / Orange Pi, Rocky, Alma, Fedora. Unix (AIX/Solaris) on Line by agreement. Not a concession to an enterprise SKU.

In-box stack

nginx, Apache, PostgreSQL, MariaDB/MySQL, Docker, systemd, Fail2ban, certbot, Bind, WordPress, Postfix, Prometheus, Grafana. One SLA.

Out of bundle SKUs

Tick at signup. Extra k8s, Ceph, mail, private AI, edge fleets. If it is not on this page it is a change request at the published hourly rate.

Add-onStarting fromWhat it covers
WordPress / Woo · 1 siteR1,450Updates, PHP/DB, backups, incident. 5-site bundle R3,950
Mail (Postfix / Dovecot)R1,950Delivery, spam path, TLS, mailbox restore drill
Extra Kubernetes clusterR4,950On top of the one cluster Workshop already includes
Private AI nodeR4,500GPU host, Ollama / vLLM, model updates, isolation
Edge fleet · 25 devicesR2,950Pi / Orange Pi / ESP32 ops, image, watch, replace
Ceph / shared storageR6,500Health, capacity, recovery drills

Why this undercuts the SKU

One Workshop vs one Canonical server.

Ubuntu Pro + 24/7 fullSA Windows MSPCatchupWeb Open Workshop
UnitPer physical Ubuntu serverPer Microsoft userPer mixed estate
Indicative~$3,400/server/yearR400–R1,000/user/monthStarting from R9,850 for 15 nodes
Debian / Pi OSNoNoFirst-class
Apps on the boxUbuntu universe if you pay fullOffice-centricCatalogue + add-ons, one ticket
Who answersVendor queueL1 then escalateNamed senior
Currency / TZUSD / remoteZAR / SASTZAR / SAST

How it starts

Health check. Then the line.

  1. 01

    Platform Health Check

    We map nodes, distros, out-of-bundle apps and risk. You get a one-page estate price: “this sits on Open Workshop starting from R9,850 covering N nodes.”

  2. 02

    Pick Bench, Workshop or Line

    Tick add-ons. Sign month-to-month or 12 months. Named engineer on the invoice.

  3. 03

    Operate

    Patch window, backup verify, ticket + WhatsApp, incident hours against the cap. Extra hours at the published rate — no surprise invoices.

Book the health check Skip to a retainer quote

Honesty

What Open Line is not

Not Canonical ESM

Bring Ubuntu Pro or TuxCare if you need the CVE entitlement. We run the estate.

Not Red Hat indemnification

We do not pretend to be a licensed RHEL subscription. Rocky/Alma are first-class to operate.

Not unlimited hours at Bench

The included-hours cap is the product. That is how the price stays sweet.