Kiption Cloud: your archive, hosted and maintained
Kiption Cloud is the hosted way to run a fiction archive: your eFiction archive moves in with one command, and updates, backups, and security become our job instead of a volunteer burden.
It works like this: we provision your archive at its own address with TLS and edge caching, run the one-command eFiction import with you, take nightly off-VM backups and rehearse restoring them, and apply software updates as they ship.
The dated record behind the offer: eFiction, the software behind most fandom archives, went unmaintained from 2015 to 2026 (version 3.5.7 shipped in October 2026 after years of silence), PHP breakage killed archives through those years, and a 2023 study found 15 percent of the automated archives it tracked had closed or gone inactive in the two years before it (dawnfelagund.com). Staying current should not be one person's unpaid job.
Your eFiction archive imports in one command. Stories, chapters, members, categories, tags, series, and challenges all come over; HTML becomes markdown on the way in, legacy passwords keep working, and old URLs 301 to their new addresses, so bookmarks and search rankings survive.
Migrations always lose something.
Not this one's record: members keep their passwords, links keep their addresses, and the source archive stays untouched while you verify the import. White-glove migration is included on the Pro plan: we run the move with you.
Operation is the product. TLS, edge caching, nightly off-VM backups, restore drills, and applied updates come with every plan; you write the policy and run the community, we keep the lights on.
Generic shared hosting does this for less.
Shared hosting rents you a folder and a database login: the script vendor and the host point at each other, updates are yours to apply, and archive-level backups do not exist. When PHP breakage killed eFiction archives, the fix was nobody's job; here it is ours.
Built on Kip, a framework written for this job. Every page renders in one database query, and an automated test fails the build if a page ever needs more. A static layer and the edge serve anonymous readers before PHP boots. Parameterized SQL throughout, nothing running in the reader's browser (zero JavaScript), and a suite of more than 1,100 automated tests: that is why a hosted archive here stays fast and stable without a stack of plugins.
Every host says secure and fast.
These are mechanisms, not adjectives: a query budget pinned by tests, a static layer that answers before the application starts, no script surface to attack, and a framework that is public at github.com/Hyperion360/kip, so the code behind each claim is yours to read.
Not ready to move yet? Your eFiction archive can keep running. We maintain a PHP 8.3 compatibility fork of eFiction at github.com/Hyperion360/efiction (GPL, provenance checked against upstream), so an archive stays up on current PHP while you decide. Migrate whenever you are ready; the importer is the same team either way.
A fork is one more thing that gets abandoned.
The fork exists to keep your archive alive today, not to replace it, and nothing about it locks you in: it is GPL like the original, and the one-command migration is waiting whenever you choose it.
The plans are simple. Standard is $9 a month with 2 GB of storage. Pro is $19 a month with 10 GB, custom domains, and white-glove migration included.
What stops you raising prices later?
Nothing stops any company from anything, which is why the exit is built in: the whole archive is one SQLite file, every story exports as EPUB or HTML at any time, and the software is MIT-licensed, so the archive you run with us can leave us.
Every yearly plan includes the migration and a custom design. Sign up for a year (Standard or Pro, billed yearly) and we run the white-glove migration for you, from intake to sign-off, with the source archive untouched until you say the import is right. If you want the archive to look like yours, we build the design too: give us the direction, or ask us to keep it close to your legacy skin so members feel at home. The design is yours to take or skip.
A year is a big commitment to a host I have not used.
The exit stays built in whatever the term (one SQLite file, exports at any time, MIT), and the year buys the two things that make a move painless: we do the move, and the archive keeps its face. Skins are a layer in the software itself, so a design we build is yours to keep and edit, not a theme we rent you.
On monthly plans, the first 100 archives move in free. Launch offer: the first 100 monthly signups get the white-glove migration at no charge (it is always included on Pro and on every yearly plan). The count runs from launch day in signup order; the offer closes at the 100th monthly archive, and this page will say so the same day.
Moving is the part I keep putting off.
That is the point of the offer: you do not do the move, we do, and what transfers (members and their passwords, categories, series, challenges, old URLs) is the same list the import guide publishes.
Self-hosting Kiption is free and always will be. The software is MIT-licensed and the hosted tier is convenience, not a wall; the same code runs on your own server for nothing.
So the free version is crippled to sell this one?
It is the same code. The plans buy operation (storage, backups, updates, someone answering), not features; a self-hosted archive keeps every writing and reading feature.
Where the do-it-yourself path still wins: it is free, eFiction runs on MySQL, which some established archives already have and know how to operate, and eFiction 4 may yet ship. Judge shipped software on both sides before moving anything.
Start your archive at cloud.kiption.com. Pick Standard or Pro, monthly or yearly: every yearly plan includes the migration and a custom design, and the first 100 monthly archives move in free. Self-hosting stays free under MIT, and questions go to help [at] kiption [dot] com. The platform comparisons live on the signup site now: start with cloud.kiption.com/compare/fictioneer.