The problem
€60 to €120 per person, every month.
That is what a small company pays for Microsoft 365, Slack, a CRM, a password manager, file storage, and a handful of other tools. The bill grows every time you hire, and none of it is really yours. Your files and your customer data sit on someone else's servers, and the price only goes one way.
There are open-source tools that do every one of these jobs, and they are genuinely good. The trouble has always been running them: installing each piece, connecting them, one login for the team, updates, backups, and fixing it when something breaks. Without an IT person, that is a wall. So you keep renting.
The proof
The same software that runs governments.
You may not know these names. Governments do. Nextcloud handles files and documents for national governments across Europe. Matrix carries chat for the French state and the German armed forces. Odoo is the CRM and back office for millions of companies. The tools are proven at the largest scale there is.
What has never existed is a way for a team of ten to run them without a team of engineers. That is the gap we close.
The solution
One box. Everything already on it.
OurGrove is a small box that sits in your office with the whole set on board and already talking to each other: files, chat, customer list, documents and passwords, behind one login for the team, set up and kept running for you.
Underneath is GroveOS, the operating system we build, and it works more like a console than a PC. A sealed appliance that just works, updates itself overnight, and puts itself back if an update goes wrong, with nobody administering it. That is what turns a pile of open-source software into something a normal business can actually own and run.
Why now
The hardware finally caught up.
6/7 years ago this needed a real server: hundreds of watts, tens of thousands of euros, and someone to look after it. Today a mini PC the size of a book does the same work for 10x less, sitting quietly next to the plant on a normal wall socket.
The software grew up too. Apps became easy to package, a whole machine became as manageable as a single app, and one shared login across everything finally works cleanly. The pieces only lined up recently. That is why this is possible today.
How it works
Free to run. Pay only for the extras.
The box is yours, and GroveOS and every app on it are free and open source. Buying it is a one-time cost in MacBook Pro territory, exact price when the first ones are ready. It updates itself, with nothing to pay to keep it going. What we sell sits around that: offsite backups, secure access from anywhere, and a support line with a real person on it. None of it is required, you take only what you actually want.
No lock-in, for real. The OS is free and the box is yours, so you can run it all yourself forever, or take our backups and support and leave the moment we stop being worth it. Your data comes with you, and nothing switches off.
Want one when the first boxes are ready?
A handful of quick questions about your team size, what you use now, and what you pay. They help us build the first version around real setups.
Put me on the listOr just email info@ourgrove.eu.