SQL Server for your app

When you ask for SQL Server (for example “an ASP.NET Core shop with SQL Server”), your app gets its own SQL Server database. Open Database → SQL Server to see where it lives.

Craftkite’s SQL Server

By default the app uses Craftkite’s SQL Server (SQL Server Express): a database of its own and a login that reaches only that database, backed up every day. Express keeps at most 10 GB per database; the studio shows how much is used. Storage is billed in credits per GB-month, like the other databases (see Pricing).

Your own SQL Server

On plans that include your own database server you can connect your SQL Server instead, separately for development and live data:

1. Create a login with only what the app needs. Database → SQL Server shows the script: it can read, write and change the tables of one database, and nothing else.
2. Click Use my own SQL Server and enter the host, port, database, login and password, or paste a connection string (ADO.NET, JDBC or mssql://).
3. Choose the encryption: Encrypted suits most servers; Strict needs SQL Server 2022 or Azure SQL. Tick Trust the server’s certificate only for a self-signed certificate.
4. Click Test: you see the version, the edition and whether the login can create tables. Nothing is left behind by the test.
5. Click Connect. The development preview restarts on your server; the live app moves with its next publish.

Your server must be reachable from the internet; private addresses are refused. Named instances (server\instance) need their port instead. The password is encrypted and never shown again or given to the AI.

Moving data

Use Download on Craftkite’s database and Import file on your server’s tables (CSV, JSON or Excel, up to 50,000 rows a file, with a dry run first). Your app’s migrations create the tables on its first start.

Backups and responsibility

On your own server, its backups, location, access and compliance are yours. Craftkite takes a snapshot before a publish changes live data when it can, but restore from your server’s own backups.

Going back

Back to Craftkite’s SQL Server switches the app to the database Craftkite kept for it (or a new one with the next build). Nothing on your server is changed or deleted.