How Tabya streamlines construction processes with DigitalOcean’s App Platform and Managed Databases

Tabya was founded in 2018 with a mission to transform how European construction companies manage their warehouses and equipment. Their platform helps construction companies track vehicles, materials, and equipment with ease. However, as a startup with just 10 employees, managing their own infrastructure was becoming a challenge. Initially, Tabya hosted their services on a European provider but encountered growing pains as they scaled, with CTO Aaron Bach mentioning “The prices were pretty good, but the effort to keep everything running in a reliable state was high, and we didn’t have much peace of mind.”

While Tabya explored other cloud providers, including AWS and Google Cloud, DigitalOcean stood out for its affordability and ease of use. AWS, despite its startup credits, came with long-term cost concerns, while DigitalOcean offered a competitive pricing model with all the features Tabya needed.

Another key driver for moving was DigitalOcean App Platform, a Platform as a Service offering that allowed them to eliminate their self-hosted Kubernetes solution and offload much of the infrastructure management burden. As CTO Aaron Bach explained, “App Platform was a main part of our decision to move to DigitalOcean, because we don’t want to get too deep into ops. We needed a platform where every developer could quickly manage things, and we didn’t have to worry about the operational side.”

In addition to wanting to efficiently manage their infrastructure through a PaaS solution, Tabya liked that DigitalOcean offers a full suite of cloud products, including Managed Databases. Aaron highlighted “We needed PostgreSQL and were also looking at Redis. DigitalOcean had everything we were looking for, and we already knew from others in our network that DigitalOcean was reliable.”

For Jonathan Heilmann, Senior Developer at Tabya, Managed Databases were a game changer compared to self-managing their databases. “One of our biggest struggles with self-managed databases was replication issues. I remember a time when our database had a split-brain scenario, and it didn’t know who the master leader was. It was a nightmare trying to merge backups,” he recalled. “Now, with DigitalOcean’s Managed Databases, I don’t have to worry about any of that—it’s reliable and takes away a huge operational headache.”

Tabya relies on the combination of Managed Databases and App Platform to keep their operations smooth and scalable. The team leverages DigitalOcean’s App Platform to deploy and manage their applications with ease, with Jonathan sharing, “One of my favorite features is how simple it is to integrate our GitHub workflows with App Platform. When we push to a branch, it automatically updates the container. It saves us a lot of time.”

Another crucial aspect of their setup is the deep integration with Terraform, which helps automate and manage their infrastructure. Aaron added, “The Terraform provider on the DigitalOcean side was really well documented and easy to integrate. It allows us to roll out new releases or update configurations for customers with just a few clicks.”

The combination of App Platform and Managed Databases allows Tabya to focus on delivering value to their customers without getting bogged down by infrastructure challenges. Jonathan noted, “I don’t have to invest as much time into operations now. It’s just running. DigitalOcean gave me back my time to develop new features and improve existing ones, which is crucial for our company’s growth.”

As Tabya continues to grow, they plan to stay with DigitalOcean due to the reliability and peace of mind it provides. The team enjoys the simplicity, reliability, and cost-effectiveness of DigitalOcean, which allows their small team to focus on development rather than operations.

With ongoing enhancements and new product releases, plus a stable infrastructure, Aaron summed it up best: “We’re at DigitalOcean because it’s simple, easy, and reliable.”