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xpander.ai ships two self-hosted editions, installed by the same one-line installer:
  • Hybrid (default) — your data and agents run in your cluster, control plane in xpander cloud. The Agent Controller is the only cluster egress to Cloud: it pulls agent definitions and the connector catalog, and reports heartbeats (the heartbeat JSON schema is not published). Execution, runtime data, credentials, and model keys stay inside your VPC. See Hybrid Architecture.
  • Air-Gapped — the full platform runs in your environment, no internet access required*. UI, database, and every platform service live in your cluster; a signed Ed25519 license file enforces entitlement in-cluster, and images are pulled from your own registry mirror. Nothing is sent to xpander Cloud. It installs anywhere without an internet connection: a cloud VPC in private mode (no internet or NAT gateways), or any disconnected compute environment. See Air-Gapped Architecture.
In both editions, MCP and external-system calls run from your cluster, and agent workspaces — the agents’ computers — run there too.
The installer’s first question is which edition you are installing, and it walks you through the rest — run it from a terminal with kubectl access to the target cluster. The xpander console generates a personalized one-liner with everything filled in. *Except outbound traffic you choose to allow: LLM providers, plus MCP and connector calls to external systems.

Hybrid Edition

The complete Hybrid guide — architecture, requirements, the installer wizard, PrivateLink, LLM keys, upgrades, troubleshooting

Air-Gapped Edition

The complete Air-Gapped guide — license, mirroring, the install pipeline, data tier, sign-in, upgrades, troubleshooting
Network boundary, identity, and what leaves each environment are on the architecture pages — one page per edition:

Cloud Architecture

Hosted control plane and data plane

Hybrid Architecture

Data plane in your VPC; catalog and heartbeat sync to Cloud

Air-Gapped Architecture

Full platform in your environment; zero egress to xpander

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Choosing an Edition

*Except outbound traffic you choose to allow: LLM providers, plus MCP and connector calls to external systems. The full requirements are published as JSON at charts.xpander.ai/requirements.json — the installer shows the same numbers before it changes anything. Choose Hybrid when you need data residency — runtime data, credentials, and model keys inside your network — but are fine with xpander cloud managing agent definitions, Workbench identity, and the connector catalog. It is the smaller footprint and the default. See Hybrid Architecture. Choose Air-Gapped when the platform must run with zero dependency on xpander cloud: sealed or classified networks, strict egress policies, or full operational ownership. “Air-gapped” means air-gapped from xpander’s cloud — internet-backed agent tools can stay enabled or be sealed off, your choice. See Air-Gapped Architecture.

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Supporting Guides

EKS Cluster Setup

Provision a new EKS cluster with VPC, IAM, nodes, and add-ons

AWS Operator Setup

IAM roles and Pod Identity for AWS connectors

IAM Best Practices

Three-tier IAM role architecture for least privilege