We think it's important to understand that *Co-op Cloud* is more than just
software and technical configurations. It is also a novel organization of *how*
to [create technology socially](https://docs.coopcloud.tech/federation).
However, strictly technically speaking you may be wondering:
### What about `$alternative`?
We have various technical critiques of other similar projects which are already up-and-running in the ecosystem, as they don't necessarily meet our needs as a small tech co-op. However, Co-op Cloud isn't meant to be a replacement for these other projects.
Here is a short overview of the pros/cons we see, in relation to our goals and needs.
### Cloudron
#### Pros
- 👍 Decent web interface for app, domain & user management.
- 👍 Large library of apps.
- 👍 Built-in SSO using LDAP, which is compatible with more apps and often has a better user interface than OAuth.
- 👍 Apps are actively maintained by the Cloudron team.
#### Cons
- 👎 Moving away from open source. The core is now proprietary software.
- 👎 Libre tier has a single app limit.
- 👎 Based on Docker images, not stacks, so multi-process apps (e.g. parsoid visual editor for Mediawiki) are a non-starter.
- 👎 Difficult to extend apps.
- 👎 Only supported on Ubuntu LTS.
- 👎 Upstream libre software communities aren't involved in packaging.
- 👎 Limited to vertical scaling.
- 👎 Tension between needs of hosting provider and non-technical user.
- 👎 LDAP introduces security problems - one vulnerable app can expose a user's password for all apps.
- 👎 Bit of a [black box](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_box).
### YunoHost
#### Pros
- 👍 Lovely web interface for app, domain & user management.