Carbon has introduced a self-hosted edition of its manufacturing software, offering factories an alternative to placing production records in a vendor-operated cloud. The September 24 release combines enterprise resource planning, material requirements planning, manufacturing execution and quality management around a Postgres database controlled by the customer.
The company is positioning the deployment model for manufacturers that keep sensitive records on premises, in a private cloud or within an air-gapped network. Carbon says the same core code serves both its managed service and self-hosted installations. The Community edition is published under the AGPL-3.0 license, while enterprise modules and air-gapped licensing remain commercial products.
That split matters for prospective adopters. The community package gives organizations access to the core ERP, MRP, MES and QMS functions and permits self-hosting. Carbon says customers wanting enterprise features, private modifications outside the AGPL’s sharing requirements, or operation in restricted networks need a commercial agreement. Its REST API and built-in model-context-protocol server are also described as paid business features in self-hosted deployments.
The product is built as a TypeScript monorepo using Postgres as its system of record. Carbon describes support for serial-number genealogy, material certificates, measurements, deviations, corrective actions, calibration, digital work instructions, barcode tracking and production scheduling. Multi-entity accounting and inter-site transfers are intended to let larger groups use a single database while retaining separate currencies, charts of accounts and tax settings.
For regulated aerospace and defence users, keeping manufacturing data within an existing security boundary may be the principal attraction. Carbon says its bring-your-own-cloud enterprise service can provide documentation used in CMMC and NIST 800-171 assessments, including system security plans and remediation records. Those are vendor claims, and organizations would still need to evaluate the architecture and compliance evidence against their own obligations.
Carbon says deployments can range from a single Docker host to a multi-region environment. In an air-gapped setup, the software is designed to operate without outbound calls, while ordinary private-cloud installations can retain their integrations. The release broadens the choices for manufacturers that want modern operational software but cannot allow production histories, inspection results or controlled technical information to leave infrastructure they administer. Self-hosting also shifts operational responsibility to the buyer. Teams must plan database backups, upgrades, identity controls, monitoring and recovery rather than relying on a software-as-a-service operator. Public source code may make inspection possible, but it does not by itself establish that a deployment is secure or compliant. Buyers will need to test those controls in the particular environment where Carbon runs.
