Hosted Studio with license tiers, hosted Postgres, and BYO-DB.
Studio Web & Hosted Projects
The browser editor (sometimes called Studio Web) is the hosted version of the Studio — same editors, running on our infrastructure so you can start building without installing anything. You open it from your account dashboard.
Who can use it: the browser editor is included with Studio and Enterprise licenses. An Indie license includes the desktop app only — opening a project in the browser asks you to upgrade (you pay only the difference). Anyone can try the browser editor free for 1 hour with no card, or for 7 days by adding a card.
When to Use Studio Web vs Desktop Studio#
| Studio Web | Desktop Studio | |
|---|---|---|
| Install | Nothing — browser only | Download installer |
| Database | Hosted Postgres or your own BYO-DB | Local PGlite (default) |
| Tier gating | Features gated by license tier | Full-tier on localhost |
| Best for | Remote teams, quick prototyping | Solo devs, offline work, large imports |
License Tiers#
| Tier | Browser editor | Includes |
|---|---|---|
| Indie | No — desktop app only (free trial available) | Full editors in the desktop app, small-scale authoring |
| Studio | Yes | Map generation, streaming maps, larger quotas |
| Enterprise | Yes | Everything, team seats, priority support |
Tier is enforced at the server action boundary — for example, both generateZoneChunksV2 and createStreamingChildZone reject Indie-tier callers with code: "TIER_REQUIRED". The UI disables the corresponding buttons with an inline upgrade CTA so there's no way to silently bypass it.
Upgrading a Tier#
Upgrades are prorated — you pay only the price gap between your current tier and the target tier (for example, Indie → Studio is $150, not the full Studio price). Buttons on your account dashboard show the prorated cost.
Hosted Project Modes#
When you create a project on Studio Web, choose one of two database modes:
Hosted (Managed Postgres)#
We provision a dedicated schema on a managed Postgres instance for your project. No setup, automatic backups. Best for most users.
The database is built in the background. Creating a hosted project returns straight away; the project card then shows a step list while the database builds, with the time elapsed so far. Open stays held until every step is done.
| Step | What happens |
|---|---|
| Creating your database | Your project's own database is created |
| Applying the engine schema | Every engine table is created |
| Checking tables | The build confirms everything it needs exists |
| Finishing schema | Any last columns are brought up to date |
| Creating your first map | World settings and your first map are added |
| Adding the starter world | The editable starter world (or an empty world, if you chose one) |
| Adding the demo art library | The demo art — shown as Skipped if you turned demo content off |
| Setting up player sign-in | Player sign-in settings for your game |
A full starter world with demo art takes a few minutes. You can leave the page — the build carries on without the tab, resumes from wherever it got to if anything interrupts it, and the project flips to ready on its own.
If it looks stuck: after about 10 minutes with no progress the card says it's taking longer than usual. The build resumes on its own; if nothing changes, opening the project retries from the step that stopped rather than from the beginning. If a build genuinely fails, the card says why — contact support if a retry fails too.
Gotchas#
- Destructive actions ask first. Deleting a project or a server asks you to type its name to confirm. Restoring a backup, removing a custom domain, removing a bring-your-own server and archiving a project each ask in a confirmation dialog, which says what will happen.
- Archiving deletes nothing. It marks the project archived and frees its hosted-project slot; the world, database and any server are kept.
BYO-DB (Bring Your Own Database)#
Connect Studio Web to a Postgres database you own — Supabase, Neon, RDS, your own VPC. Your game data never leaves your infrastructure. Required for compliance scenarios and for running the game server on your own hosting.
To use BYO-DB:
- Create the database and enable the
uuid-osspandpg_trgmextensions. - Copy the transaction-mode pooler URL (not the direct connection URL).
- In Studio Web, pick BYO-DB when creating the project and paste the URL.
- We run migrations against your database and seed defaults. Your admin panel then talks to that database directly.
Runtime Notes#
- Your plan tier is resolved from your ED5 account each time the editor loads, then cached for the session.
adminrole maps toenterprisetier; active licenses map to their purchased tier; trial accounts map toindie.