Migrating to Hostman: How a DevSecOps Startup Slashed Their Cloud Bills by Up to 3x

Whitespots.io switched from DigitalOcean to Hostman after a single call—and cut cloud costs by 3x while gaining billing transparency, CI/CD stability, and speed. And that’s a success story to tell. 

“With Hostman, we finally got predictable IPs, no billing surprises, and way faster deploys. We even scaled up and still pay less than before. Honestly, it's the first time our infrastructure just does what we expect—and that’s why I chose it,” 

— Maxim Mošarović, CEO of Whitespots.io

A Short Introduction 

In this case study we will talk about the experience of Whitespots.io, a B2B self-hosted platform transforming DevSecOps for modern development teams. Their platform helps organizations detect vulnerabilities and automate security workflows through an innovative approach to SAST, SCA, DAST, and Cloud security checks.

As a growing startup serving enterprise clients, Whitespots.io needed testing infrastructure that could scale reliably while maintaining cost efficiency—critical factors for any company building in the field of cybersecurity.

The Setup: Complex Infrastructure Requirements

"During the interview, Maxim described his setup. We realized every pain he mentioned—we already knew how to fix it. So we offered to give it a try," 

— says Ilya Arantsev, CBDO at Hostman

Whitespots.io's platform had some pretty unique infrastructure demands that made standard cloud offerings challenging:

• They needed to spin up dozens of servers that scan each other

• Varied environments supporting Debian, Docker, and different Kubernetes versions

• Custom firewall rules for security scanning operations

• Automatic scaling through CI/CD pipelines

• Public IPs available upfront to register with Cloudflare and other services immediately

The team had been using DigitalOcean and, for the most part, it worked. But several persistent issues were creating operational friction and unexpected costs.

When Hostman reached out for a CustDev, it started as a casual conversation. By the end of the call, Whitespots.io had decided to migrate.

Dealing With the Provisioning Time Problem

1st Challenge: Unpredictable Infrastructure Deployment

For a DevSecOps platform, reliability isn't optional—it's fundamental. Whitespots.io needed predictable infrastructure provisioning, but DigitalOcean's unpredictable VM management was becoming a bottleneck.

What was before:

• VM creation times ranged from 5-10 minutes with no estimate provided

• No visibility into deployment progress

• IP addresses weren't immediately available, causing waste of gitlab runner minutes and delaying  CI/CD pipelines

• Tests and releases could be delayed by infrastructure issues

The Solution: Transparent, Fast Provisioning

Hostman changed this completely. Let’s see how it works now.

Deployments now consistently complete within 1-5 minutes, with a live progress bar showing real-time status. IP addresses are immediately available for DNS and Cloudflare setup, making CI/CD integration reliable and predictable.

Hidden Billing

2nd Challenge: Surprise Charges and Billing Opacity

Nothing kills a startup's budget planning like unexpected cloud bills. Whitespots.io faced recurring issues with DigitalOcean's billing transparency, creating financial uncertainty that made growth planning difficult.

What was before:

• Orphaned resources (load balancers, snapshots) continued charging after deletion

• Billing surprises at month's end

• No clear visibility into what was driving costs

• Manual tracking required to identify cost drivers

The Solution: Complete Billing Transparency

And now, with Hostman, billing has become transparent with no hidden charges, real-time cost visibility, and clean resource cleanup with no orphaned charges. 

But the real game-changer was Hostman's pricing itself—infrastructure costs dropped by 3x immediately. The transparency meant Whitespots.io stopped paying for orphaned resources, while Hostman's affordable pricing kept costs 2x below their original spend with DigitalOcean even after scaling up significantly. Below is a pricing comparison for the same configuration as an example, so you can see the benefit for yourself.

Manual Scaling Difficulties

3rd Challenge: Downtime-Heavy Resource Management

For a security platform serving enterprise clients, any downtime is problematic. DigitalOcean's scaling limitations were creating operational overhead and potential service disruptions.

What was before:

• VM resizing required complete shutdown (15+ minutes of downtime)

• Manual intervention needed for scaling operations

• Resource scaling disrupted active security scans

The Solution: Instant Vertical Scaling

Here's what Hostman brought to the table:

• Vertical scaling completed in seconds without downtime

• Instant load balancer provisioning

• Elastic resource scaling based on demand

• Seamless firewall controls

Zero-downtime scaling enabled Whitespots.io to handle traffic spikes during complex testing period without service interruption.

Support and Operational Complexity 

4th Challenge: Slow Support and DevOps Overhead

As a lean startup, Whitespots.io couldn't afford dedicated DevOps resources just for migration or lengthy support ticket processes. Their growing platform needed infrastructure support that matched their pace.

The reality with DigitalOcean involved traditional support processes with delays and complex configuration requirements.

Hostman transformed this experience completely. The team now has direct Telegram chat access with Hostman's team, a developer-friendly UI that requires no terminal expertise, and lightning-fast issue resolution—their RabbitMQ issue was resolved in just 10 minutes. Best of all, they no longer need a dedicated DevOps engineer.

"I give access to a developer, and they configure everything through the interface. No tickets, no terminal"

The Migration: Seamless Transition in Under an Hour

The complete migration process took less than 60 minutes:

1. Uploaded SSH keys to Hostman platform

2. Deployed required docker services with custom configurations

3. Received immediate IP addresses for DNS setup

4. Connected CI/CD pipelines

5. Launched environments with needed firewall rules

The migration was smooth—Hostman had already solved the very same issues for other clients.

Big Wins, No DevOps

In the end, Whitespots.io got:

• 3x reduction in infrastructure costs initially

• 2x ongoing savings even after significant scaling

• Faster deploys & monitoring: from unpredictable to fixed 3-4 minutes

• Zero load balancer billing anomalies

• Good vibes for Dev & Ops teams who were really satisfied with Hostman’s responsiveness and reliability 🥰

The cost savings didn't just improve margins—they enabled innovation:

"Before, even thinking about running our own AI was too expensive. Now we've launched an LLM. It's resource-hungry, but with the new pricing—it's finally doable. Our total monthly payment is still lower, than it was with DigitalOcean"

And we did all of this without a DevOps team—just Telegram support and a UI every developer can understand.

Whitespots.io—Now on the Hostman Marketplace

Whitespots.io can now be deployed right from the server creation menu in Hostman’s Control Panel—in one click. It’s the base version of the platform that includes core deduplication and risk assessment. 

For businesses that need more, there’s also an enterprise license with a wider range of features including support from the entire Whitespots.io team of cybersecurity experts.

Key Takeaways for IT Leaders

What to prioritize when evaluating cloud providers

1. Billing transparency—Hidden costs kill budget planning

2. Provisioning reliability—Predictable deployment times enable reliable operations

3. Zero-downtime scaling—Growth shouldn't require service interruptions

4. Developer-friendly tools—Reduce operational overhead and specialized skills requirements

5. Responsive support—Infrastructure issues need immediate resolution

Quick Cloud Optimization Tips

• Split infrastructure into logical projects for better cost tracking

• Use fully managed databases instead of self-hosted solutions

• Put someone in charge of cloud cost management and reporting

• Consolidate the number of clusters and services where possible

• Don't hesitate to ask for discounts from your provider 😉

Ready to explore how Hostman can optimize your infrastructure costs and operations? Sign up today and test our cost-effective cloud solutions for yourself!