On-demand desktops, billed by the second.
DeskBoot gives you a clean Windows or Linux desktop in the cloud, accessible over RDP, ready in a couple of minutes. You pay for what you use. When you're done, click Terminate and the bill stops.
Why we built it
DeskBoot started with a frustration. Spinning up a Windows or Linux desktop on AWS takes 15 minutes of clicking through AMIs, security groups, key pairs, and console tabs — for a session you might use for 30 minutes. Pay for hours? You ran for 20 minutes. International cards? Maybe. M-Pesa? Definitely not.
So we built the wrapper we wanted: sign up with Google, verify your phone, add a card, click Launch. RDP into a fresh box in about a minute. Stop the box, the meter stops. Close the account, you get your unused balance back.
Cloud desktops shouldn't be a privilege of people who already know AWS. We're trying to fix that — one fewer click, one fewer barrier, one more region, one more local payment method at a time.
What we believe
Per-second billing isn't a feature, it's a principle
If your session ran for 11 minutes, you owe for 11 minutes — not an hour, not a “minimum charge.” Anything else is asking customers to overpay so our spreadsheet looks tidier. Ours isn't. We're fine with that.
You own what's on the box
We don't inspect session contents. We don't snapshot what you're working on. We don't train AI models on your screen, your files, or your terminal. When you click Terminate, it's gone — encrypted disk wiped, no backup, no recovery. The full picture is in our Privacy Policy.
No surprise bills
Prepaid balance, never an invoice you didn't expect. Auto-stop kicks in at $0. Email warnings before you cross your threshold. Unused card-funded balance is refundable on account close — written out in our Refund Policy.
Built where customers actually are
We launched with KES and USD pricing, M-Pesa + card + bank payments via Paystack, and regions across four continents on day one. Cloud desktops aren't an American product. We're not going to pretend they are.
Ship the boring stuff carefully
Privacy policy, refund policy, audit logs, encrypted disks, view-once passwords, per-session keypairs, acceptable-use enforcement — none of these are exciting features. They're the table stakes for asking customers to trust us with a box they actually work on. We take them seriously even when nobody's watching.
What you get
- Per-second billing. No monthly minimums, no rounding up.
- Windows or Linux. Server 2025/2022/2019, Ubuntu 24.04/22.04, Debian 12, Kali.
- Pre-installed tools. Chrome on first boot, audio enabled, Edge clutter removed. Linux gets xrdp + XFCE.
- Static IPs available. $5/IP/month if you need a fixed address.
- Strong isolation. Per-session keypair, per-session firewall. Nothing shared across customers.
- Payments your way. Card, M-Pesa, bank, USSD via Paystack.
- REST API + tokens. Drive everything from your own code — see /docs/api.
Who it's for
- Remote workers who need a Windows box for one app or one task
- Developers spinning up clean envs per branch / PR / experiment
- Security testers running ephemeral pen-test labs with authorization in hand
- Training programs handing each student a fresh sandbox
- Anyone who needs a powerful desktop for a few hours without buying hardware
Built on AWS
DeskBoot runs on Amazon EC2. We add the dashboard, the billing, the automation, the customer-facing brain. AWS provides the metal, the network, and the per-second compute meter we pass through (with a small markup) directly to you.
Follow along
We ship every week and post about it. Follow whichever platform you already spend time on — we're on all of them, and everything major also lands in the newsletter.
Try it
Free credits on signup — $50 for the first 50 testers, $5 for everyone after that. No card needed to look around.