Prachyam Infrastructure

Overview

When I joined Prachyam Studios, the company was spending heavily on commercial services — Google Workspace for email, LucidLink for file sharing, scattered tools for development. I proposed self-hosting everything on our own infrastructure and built the entire stack from scratch.

Infrastructure Overview

Before vs After

The Challenge

A growing 22-person team needed reliable email across 12 domains, shared file storage and collaboration, a private development network, and an OTT platform targeting 12+ devices — all without the budget for enterprise SaaS pricing.

Mail Server — Mailcow

Deployed a self-hosted Mailcow mail server on Docker that handled 18 million emails across 12 domains. This wasn't just internal email — it powered marketing campaigns and business communication at scale.

Configuration went deep: SPF, DKIM, and DMARC records for every domain to ensure deliverability. Rspamd for anti-spam filtering. ClamAV for virus scanning. Automated backups to prevent data loss.

The cost comparison was stark: Google Workspace at $6/user/month across 12 domains adds up fast. Our self-hosted solution runs on a single VPS at ~₹800/month.

File Sharing — NextCloud

Set up NextCloud as a self-hosted replacement for LucidLink. The 22-person team gets file sharing, real-time document collaboration, calendar management, and video meetings — all running on our own servers.

LDAP authentication keeps user management centralized. Storage quotas prevent anyone from filling the disk. Automated backups run nightly.

LucidLink costs ~$25/user/month. For 22 users, that's $550/month (~₹5.5 lakh/year). Our NextCloud instance runs on the same VPS alongside Mailcow.

Development Network — Tailscale + Caddy + dnsmasq

The company's machines were underpowered for the development workload. Instead of buying new hardware, I networked the existing machines together into a private mesh.

Tailscale creates a mesh VPN where every machine can reach every other machine securely. dnsmasq handles custom DNS resolution so services are accessible by name. Caddy provides automatic HTTPS with valid certificates on the private network.

The result: developers distribute builds, tests, and services across multiple machines as if they were one system.

AI Tooling — 23 MCP Servers

Built 23 custom Model Context Protocol servers for AI-assisted development. A Qdrant vector database indexes the entire codebase for semantic search — developers can ask natural language questions about the code and get accurate answers.

Each MCP server handles a specific capability: codebase Q&A, deployment automation, log analysis, documentation generation, and code review assistance. The tooling integrates with Claude, GPT, and other LLM providers.

Cost Impact

Results

The infrastructure serves a 22-person team reliably with 18M emails processed, 12 domains managed, file sharing and collaboration running smoothly, and AI-assisted development tooling that made the entire team more productive. Total infrastructure cost: ~₹800/month VPS. Estimated commercial equivalent: lakhs annually.