Cloud desktops. Hosted in Cape Town. Billed by the second.
Most cloud desktop providers put you on the US East Coast whether you're in San Francisco or Nairobi. DeskBoot runs sessions in AWS's Cape Town region (af-south-1) — same continent, real latency, real bandwidth. Pay in KES or USD via M-Pesa, card, or bank.
Why it matters
Hosted in Cape Town
Your session runs inside AWS af-south-1, physically located in Cape Town. Round-trip latency from Johannesburg, Nairobi, Lagos, and Kinshasa is a fraction of what you get routing through Europe or the US East Coast.
M-Pesa, card, bank — all in Paystack
Top up in KES or USD. M-Pesa STK push, card, bank transfer, USSD — all one flow through Paystack. No forcing customers through Wise or PayPal to add $10 of balance.
Per-second billing
Ran your session for 11 minutes? You're charged for 11 minutes. No hourly minimums. No monthly commitments. Stop the box and the meter stops.
Windows 11-style desktops
Server 2025 with the Windows 11 UI generation — rounded corners, dark mode, native RDP. Or pick Ubuntu 24.04, Debian 12, Kali, Fedora. All ready in about a minute.
Latency from major African cities
Approximate round-trip times to af-south-1 over well-peered ISPs. Your mileage will vary with local carrier routing, but the shape is right — an order of magnitude faster than the same session hosted in Ireland or Virginia.
| City | Country | Latency |
|---|---|---|
| Cape Town | South Africa | < 5 ms |
| Johannesburg | South Africa | ~15 ms |
| Nairobi | Kenya | ~130 ms |
| Lagos | Nigeria | ~120 ms |
| Kinshasa | DR Congo | ~90 ms |
| Accra | Ghana | ~140 ms |
Local payments, done right
- M-Pesa (Kenya). STK push on your phone. Confirm and you're back in the dashboard in under a minute.
- Card. Visa, Mastercard, Verve — Kenyan and international.
- Bank transfer + USSD. For customers who don't use cards or M-Pesa.
- Displayed in KES or USD. Whichever your account defaults to.
- Refundable balance. Unused card-funded balance is refundable on account close — same policy as everyone else. See /refunds.
Who this is for
Spin up a Windows box for the one app your Mac can't run — QuickBooks, Visual Studio, Sage, Tally — RDP in from a MacBook or a Chromebook. No shipped hardware.
Give each client project a clean, isolated desktop. Terminate when the contract ends and nothing personal leaks across engagements.
Kali 2026.2 pre-configured with a real IP, real internet, real RDP. Africa-side base of operations for penetration tests on African clients (with authorization in hand — see our AUP).
Hand every student a fresh Windows or Linux sandbox on demand. Auto-stop kicks in at $0 so there's no runaway bill. Bulk credits available on request.
Not near Africa?
DeskBoot also runs in US East (N. Virginia + Ohio), EU West (Ireland), and Asia Pacific (Mumbai). Pick the region closest to you at launch time — the same UI, same pricing.
Try it from wherever you are
Signup is free. Free credits included — $50 for the first 50 testers, $5 for everyone after that. No card needed to look around.