Why self-host
- Data sovereignty: LLM request and response payloads never leave your network. All logging, scoring, and storage happens on infrastructure you control.
- Regulated industries: Healthcare, finance, and government environments often prohibit sending data to third-party SaaS. Self-hosting satisfies those requirements.
- Air-gapped deployments: Cognisafe works entirely on-premises with local LLMs via Ollama. No outbound internet required (optional even for safety scoring).
- Custom data retention: Configure PostgreSQL retention policies to match your compliance requirements — Cognisafe does not impose its own retention limits.
What you deploy
The full Cognisafe stack consists of six services:
You own and operate all of these. Cognisafe is fully open-source under the MIT licence.
Deployment options
Docker Compose
The fastest way to run the full stack. Suitable for a single VM, local development, or a small team. Up in under 5 minutes.
Kubernetes / Helm
Production-grade deployment via Railway or your own Kubernetes cluster. Horizontal scaling, managed databases, auto-deploy on git push.
Minimum requirements
The safety worker is the most CPU-intensive component when running multiple scorers concurrently. Scale it independently with
--scale safety_worker=N.