I thought the same. Their wording is a bit misleading. There's nothing like a private cloud here. In my eyes it's like bitnami [0], "cloud hosting" (or a convenient way to deploy apps in few clicks).

[0] https://bitnami.com/

Compared to bitnami, we focus on the convenient installation of apps into your cloud. This includes also updates, backup and single-sign-on. See https://cloudron.io/features.html. We do not focus on virtual machine images that can be launched on your favorite IaaS.

Well, at some point you have to trust the legally binding contract you enter in to. Otherwise you're proposing to put servers in your garage (or wherever) which is precisely the complexity this service is attempting to get away from.

> Otherwise you're proposing to put servers in your garage

Which is also likely to be against the contract you signed with your ISP unless you bought a business line.

If we take the term "private" to an extreme, you are absolutely right. We took the term in a similar way as it is used with virtual private servers. Also our business model will be based on providing the logistics around a private cloud, which focuses on convenience.

"Public Cloud" and "Private Cloud" are pretty standard industry terms for using the same orchestration systems on your own data center vs. an outsourced one.

Is there any plan to allow the service to point at one's own DO or AWS account? That would remove one more privacy concern some folk seem to have.

Not currently, but we will be working with VPS providers to provide this option.