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AppCrane
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Privacy

Last updated: October 23, 2026

AppCrane is software you run on your own server. This page says what the AppCrane project itself receives (from this website, from the anonymous install check-in and from the MCP connector) and which other services an AppCrane server talks to on its operator’s behalf. AppCrane is open source, so each claim about the software can be checked in the code.

This website

  • No accounts and no cookies. appcrane.dev has no sign-in. It sets no cookies, and its own scripts store nothing in your browser.
  • Analytics: Plausible. Each page loads Plausible’s script from plausible.io. It sends Plausible the page you viewed, the page that linked you here, how far you scrolled and how long the page was in view. The script sets no cookies and stores nothing in your browser. Plausible’s own servers see your IP address and browser details when the script runs; how Plausible treats them is in its data policy.
  • Nothing else from third parties. Fonts, images and styles are served from appcrane.dev itself. Plausible is the only outside script.
  • Server logs. The web server that delivers these pages sees your IP address and browser details, as every web server does, and may record them in its access log. We do not use those logs for analytics or to identify visitors.

The contact form

The contact form is the only place on this site that asks for personal details. When you send it, your name, e-mail address and anything else you add (phone, company, message) are e-mailed to the AppCrane maintainer, together with your IP address, so we can answer you. The message is not stored in a database, and your IP address is kept in memory for an hour to limit how many messages one network can send. We use what you send only to answer you.

AppCrane on your server

AppCrane is self-hosted. Your apps, users, secrets, logs, audit trail and backups live on the server you run it on, in its data directory. The AppCrane project receives none of it, with one exception: the check-in below.

Anonymous daily install check-in

Once a day each AppCrane server sends https://ping.appcrane.dev/v1/checkin one small JSON document:

  • a random install id, generated on first start and stored in the data directory as install-id. It is not derived from the host, the domain or any user;
  • the AppCrane version, the Node.js version, the operating system and the CPU architecture;
  • three counts: registered apps, apps with a live deploy, and active users.

No names, domains, e-mail addresses or app contents. The receiver does not store IP addresses. We use the check-in to learn how many installs there are and which versions and runtimes they run. It carries no personal data and is not linked to a person.

To turn it off, set APPCRANE_CHECKIN=off (or DO_NOT_TRACK=1) in the server’s environment and restart. Every start logs whether the check-in is on and what it sends. APPCRANE_CHECKIN_URL sends it to an address of your own instead. The code is in installCheckin.js.

Services your AppCrane server talks to

These calls go from your server straight to the service named, using your configuration and your credentials. None of it is sent to the AppCrane project. Which ones happen depends on the features you use.

  • OSV (osv.dev): the names and versions of the packages in your apps’ lockfiles, and of language runtimes, to look up known vulnerabilities.
  • npm registry: package details when auto-patch looks for a fixed version.
  • Docker Hub: base-image lookups to check for a fresh base image, and image details for the app catalogue.
  • GitHub: self-update fetches from your install’s own git remote; repository access through a GitHub App or token you configure; the image scanner downloads its vulnerability database from GitHub’s container registry; and release notes can be read from the public AppCrane repository.
  • Anthropic: only when you or your users use the coder, Ask Claude, AppStudio or the LLM gateway, with the key or Claude login you configured. These send prompts and the source code being worked on. The LLM gateway can also forward your apps’ requests to OpenAI if you enable it.
  • E-mail: through the SMTP server or Microsoft 365 mailbox you configure.
  • SIEM and backups: audit events to the syslog, HTTPS or S3 destinations you configure, and off-site backups to the S3 bucket you configure.
  • Installer: install.sh downloads from GitHub, NodeSource and Caddy’s package repository.

The MCP connector

The appcrane-mcp connector talks only to the AppCrane server you set in APPCRANE_URL, sending your APPCRANE_KEY (and APPCRANE_GITHUB_TOKEN, if you set one) to that server. It has no telemetry. Without APPCRANE_URL it makes no network calls and answers from its built-in tool list.

Who is responsible

  • Data inside a self-hosted AppCrane belongs to whoever runs that server. They decide what is collected and how long it is kept; ask them.
  • This website, the contact form and the install check-in are the AppCrane project’s. Questions go through the contact form or a GitHub issue. Security reports: see security.txt.

When any of this changes, this page and the date at the top change with it.