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Deployment Mode Matrix

AxonFlow has both edition tiers and deployment modes. Teams often mix those concepts together, but they answer different questions:

  • tier controls feature limits and licensing behavior
  • deployment mode controls how the platform is operated and what the portal exposes

This page is the fast reference for the deployment side of that picture.

The Important Distinction​

For public docs, the most relevant runtime and deployment states are:

  • Community: self-hosted runtime with no license
  • Evaluation: self-hosted runtime with an evaluation license
  • SaaS: enterprise-operated multi-tenant deployment
  • In-VPC: enterprise deployment in the customer’s AWS account

Community and Evaluation usually share the same core self-hosted topology. SaaS and In-VPC are enterprise operating models that change visibility, identity, and portal behavior.

Deployment Mode Matrix​

ModeTypical userTenant isolationNode visibilityPlatform metrics visibilityDeployment controlsProtected portal workflows
Communityengineer validating locallyself-managed, no portal RLS surfacelocal onlyself-managed via Prometheus/GrafanaDocker Compose / self-managedNo
Evaluationplatform team validating pre-prodself-managedself-managedself-managedself-managedUsually no full enterprise portal path
SaaSenterprise customer using AxonFlow-hosted control planeyeshidden in portaltenant-focused usage onlyhidden in portalYes
In-VPCenterprise platform team running AxonFlow in its own AWS accountno RLS-style tenant isolation in portal modevisible in portalvisible in portalvisible in portalYes

What The Enterprise Portal Actually Uses​

The customer portal’s deployment-config API currently returns:

  • mode
  • tenant_isolation
  • show_node_usage
  • show_platform_metrics
  • show_deployments

For the current portal code path:

  • saas means request-focused, tenant-isolated portal behavior
  • invpc means platform-aware portal behavior with node and deployment visibility

That matters because the same enterprise portal intentionally behaves differently depending on where it is running.

How To Decide Which Mode Fits​

Community​

Choose community when you want to:

  • stand up the core runtime quickly
  • validate SDK integration
  • test MCP, policies, and workflows locally
  • prove that AxonFlow can govern real AI traffic before involving procurement

Evaluation​

Choose evaluation when you need to:

  • keep the same self-hosted control plane shape
  • raise limits to something closer to real staging or pilot usage
  • test approval queues, policy simulation, and evidence-export behavior

SaaS​

Choose SaaS when the enterprise wants:

  • portal-backed operations
  • strong tenant isolation in the hosted control plane
  • less infrastructure responsibility on the customer side

In-VPC​

Choose In-VPC when the enterprise wants:

  • AWS-account ownership
  • more infrastructure visibility in the portal
  • deployment and node operations inside its own environment

Common Mistake​

The most common planning mistake is to treat Evaluation like a separate hosting mode. It is usually better understood as a licensed version of the self-hosted runtime. SaaS and In-VPC are the bigger operating-model changes.

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