// 8 apps · deploy as one
Drone Operations Stack
Aerial mission file storage + geotagged media library + GIS web server + telemetry ingestion + flight log visualization + AI vision analysis. Built for drone service providers, mapping firms, and inspection teams.
What this stack is
Drone Operations Stack is the self-hosted alternative to DroneDeploy, Pix4D Cloud, and Skyebrowse for drone service providers, inspection teams, and aerial mapping firms. One-click deploys mission file storage (Nextcloud), a geotagged media library with EXIF/GPS browsing (Immich), S3-compatible storage for huge 4K/8K video files (MinIO), time-series telemetry ingestion (InfluxDB + Grafana), and AI-powered vision analysis on captured frames (Open WebUI + Ollama).
Where cloud drone platforms charge per processed map and lock your flight logs behind US-hosted SaaS, this stack puts everything — footage, telemetry, mission plans, AI analysis — on infrastructure the drone operator controls. Critical when inspection clients sign NDAs, when public-safety teams have data-handling rules, or when EU operators face EASA + national civil aviation data residency requirements.
What it's for
- Aerial inspection — power lines, wind turbines, bridges, industrial facilities: footage stays under inspection-client NDA
- Photogrammetry & mapping — accumulating thousands of geotagged stills per flight, processed offline
- Construction progress tracking — weekly aerial flights, comparison over time, AI-assisted change detection
- Real estate & architecture — branded client galleries with watermarked deliverables
- Search & rescue — public-safety teams logging flight paths, evidence chain-of-custody, AI-assisted person/object detection on footage
- Agricultural surveying — multispectral imagery archives, NDVI analysis history, AI crop-condition tagging
- Drone training schools — student flight log archives, instructor review, performance trends
Who it's for
- Drone service providers with steady-revenue inspection/mapping contracts (5-50 monthly flights)
- Construction firms running their own drone fleets for progress documentation
- Agricultural drone operators offering precision-farming services
- Public-safety units (police, fire, S&R) needing evidence-grade footage chain-of-custody
- Independent professional drone pilots building a long-term portfolio + client deliverable system
- Drone training schools managing student flight archives at scale
- Inspection consultancies delivering reports to industrial clients with strict NDA + data residency clauses
Apps in this stack
| App | Role |
|---|---|
| Nextcloud | Mission folders, client deliverable structure, regulatory paperwork archive, shared review with clients |
| Immich | Geotagged photo/video library — EXIF coords on map, face/object recognition, albums per mission/client |
| MinIO | S3-compatible object storage — primary destination for raw 4K/8K video files (drone footage is GB per flight) |
| QGIS Server | GIS web server: serve QGIS Desktop projects via WMS/WFS/WCS, browse layers in Lizmap web client. Where flight plans, orthomosaics, and analysis layers live |
| InfluxDB | Time-series database — altitude, battery, GPS path, airspeed, RPM, all telemetry from ground stations |
| Grafana | Flight log dashboards — visualize telemetry per mission, fleet aggregate trends, anomaly alerts |
| Open WebUI | AI-assisted analysis on captured frames + flight log Q&A ("show me all flights where battery dropped below 20%") |
| Ollama | Local LLM + vision-capable models (LLaVA, Qwen-VL) for AI tagging of aerial imagery |
Sizing & deployment
- Recommended VPS: 14 GB RAM, 6 vCPU, 500 GB NVMe storage (storage-heavy; QGIS Server adds ~2 GB RAM baseline)
- GPU optional — useful for batch AI tagging of large image sets; not required for storage/telemetry/GIS workflows
- Storage scales aggressively: a single 30-min 4K drone flight ≈ 25-40 GB; mapping mission with 1000 RAW stills ≈ 20-50 GB; orthomosaics generated by OpenDroneMap (roadmap) add 5-15 GB per mission
- Object storage offload strongly recommended: MinIO can mount external block volumes (Hetzner Volume / S3-compatible) for cold archive
- QGIS project files stored at
/opt/qgis/projects/. Upload from QGIS Desktop via SFTP/rsync — same workflow drone pilots already use for mission plans - Deploy time: ~25-30 min one-click, all SSL automatic via Let's Encrypt
- Backup profile: nightly Nextcloud + Immich library + InfluxDB dump + Grafana dashboards + QGIS projects directory
Why hosters sell this
The drone services market is growing 20-25% annually and is dramatically under-served by mainstream cloud. The existing SaaS options have three killer problems for professional operators:
1. Per-flight or per-acre pricing that makes ROI math hostile at scale 2. US-cloud data residency that breaks inspection NDAs and public-safety chain-of-custody requirements 3. Locked ecosystem — your flight logs and footage live in their database, vendor lock-in by design
This stack solves all three at flat-rate VPS pricing. The hoster sells to a vertical that's both price-aware (they hate per-flight bills) and price-tolerant for compliance (inspection clients pay for sovereignty).
Common resale shape:
- Solo pilot tier — single VPS, single user, personal mission archive + AI tagging
- Small operator tier — 2-5 pilots, shared mission library, telemetry dashboards, client deliverable portals
- Inspection company tier — multi-tenant client isolation, white-label client portals, dedicated infra
- Public-safety tier — air-gapped variant, audit log, evidence chain-of-custody documentation
Stack retail pricing is set by the hoster based on their cost stack (VPS + storage + Bluix license + sector-specific operational overhead). See the suggested retail hint on this page as a starting anchor.
Roadmap apps (planned catalog additions)
These would deepen the stack's coverage of the drone vertical. Not in catalog yet — would be added in a focused expansion if customer demand confirms the segment:
- OpenDroneMap (ODM) — photogrammetry: stitches drone photos into orthomosaics, 3D point clouds, DEMs. The big missing piece vs Pix4D. Outputs flow naturally into QGIS Server for web-publishing
- Mosquitto MQTT + Node-RED — live telemetry ingestion during flights (current stack supports post-flight log import via InfluxDB; live-streaming would be incremental)
- Drone-specific log parsers — ArduPilot log files (.bin), DJI flight records (.dat), PX4 logs (.ulog)
- GeoServer — alternative to QGIS Server for organizations that prefer the GeoServer ecosystem (some inspection clients standardize on it)
If you (the hoster) confirm demand for this vertical, these are low-effort catalog additions and would unlock a v2 "Drone Operations Pro" tier with full photogrammetry pipeline.
Compliance profile
- All footage and flight logs stay on the VPS — critical for inspection clients with NDAs, public-safety chain-of-custody, EU operators under EASA Art. 11
- Audit log of every footage access + every AI analysis query + every login, with user identity, timestamp, IP
- Deploy region picked at provisioning for national civil aviation data rules (EU, US, AU, BR each have different requirements)
- Watermarked client deliverables — Nextcloud + Immich support per-album branding for branded client portals
- Right-to-be-forgotten for clients who terminate contracts (delete their Nextcloud folder + Immich album + InfluxDB tagged data = full removal)
- Air-gap variant available for public-safety / government deployments (no internet egress, manual updates only)