When Cozystack fits SMB and mid-market — and when it doesn't

The honest test

Cozystack fits when at least three of:

1. Regulated data — banking, healthcare, public sector data with sovereignty / residency requirements
2. Multi-tenant model — SaaS / customer-facing / cross-BU isolation needed
3. Sustained workloads — 24/7 utilization where dedicated economics beat hyperscaler
4. Internal platform team — capacity to operate (or building it)
5. AI/GPU workloads at scale — sustained inference / training
6. Specific exit trigger — VMware migration, hyperscaler repatriation

If you have 0-1 of these, Cozystack is over-engineering. If 2, marginal. If 3+, fits.

When it doesn’t fit — what to do instead

For SMB without regulated data

• Hyperscaler-managed deployments (AWS, Azure, GCP) — operationally simple
• DigitalOcean / Hetzner / OVHcloud — managed cloud-adjacent
• Proxmox VE for on-prem virtualization

For mid-market with simple needs

• Vanilla Kubernetes if container-only — lighter than Cozystack
• Existing managed cloud if it works — don’t fix what isn’t broken
• Hetzner cloud + VPS if team is small — operationally simple

When it does fit — examples

Mid-market with regulated data

• Regional bank with multi-jurisdictional operations under DORA
• Mid-size insurance carrier with claims-processing AI on regulated data
• Public-sector or quasi-public with procurement-mandated sovereignty

Mid-market becoming multi-tenant

• SaaS company with 100+ customers needing hard isolation
• B2B platform serving regulated industry customers
• Specialty cloud product for vertical market

Mid-market with strong platform team

• Mid-market with intentional in-house platform engineering investment
• Fast-growing tech-mid-market scaling beyond hyperscaler simple model

Ænix engagement model for mid-market

• 15-minute fit-check call — free, no sales pressure
• Architecture review (5-10 days) — if mid-market wants structured assessment
• Phase 2 implementation — only if it actually fits

For most SMB outreach, the honest answer is “stay where you are.” We’re explicit about this.