Terms of Service
Last updated: 2026-07-18 · Product: RetroGarden (retrogarden.net)
1. Who we are
RetroGarden is a managed hosting service for Q&A communities based on open-source Retrospring software. We are not affiliated with, endorsed by, or the official operators of the original Retrospring project or retrospring.net.
2. Accounts
You must provide a valid email and keep credentials secure. The first registered platform account may be designated a platform administrator for operational bootstrap; ordinary customers receive standard user roles. You are responsible for activity under your account, including misuse by anyone you share credentials with.
We may suspend or terminate accounts that violate these terms, fail payment when billing is enabled, or create operational risk to co-tenants. You may request account closure by contacting the operator (see contact below).
3. Instances (“gardens”)
Paid (or pre-billing stub) subscription grants one managed instance at
{slug}.retrogarden.net subject to fair-use capacity.
We operate compute, shared databases, object storage path, TLS edge, and platform app updates.
You operate community configuration, branding, and content moderation on your instance.
4. Content policy (default)
Instance operators (admins on each garden) own and are responsible for the content and conduct on their instance, including user posts, media, and moderation decisions. RetroGarden as a platform does not pre-screen community content.
Platform-level abuse rules still apply. We may suspend or delete an instance, or restrict accounts, for:
- Illegal content or activity under applicable law
- Malware, phishing, spam-as-a-service, or attacks against our infrastructure or other tenants
- Child sexual abuse material (CSAM) — zero tolerance; we will cooperate with lawful process
- Severe harassment campaigns, doxxing, or threats when reported with evidence
- Resource abuse that endangers co-tenants after notice (see pricing “too large” policy)
- Attempts to compromise the platform, other gardens, or shared services
We prefer notice-and-action for grey-area reports. We may act immediately for clear illegal material or active security threats. Platform actions can include stop, deprovision, and account termination without refund where abuse is clear.
5. Acceptable use
Do not use RetroGarden to operate botnets, open relays, cryptocurrency mining, or any service designed primarily to harm others. Do not probe or attack co-tenant infrastructure. Reserved hostnames (portal, www, admin, etc.) are not available as slugs.
6. Billing
Standard plan is about $10/month per instance unless otherwise agreed. When Stripe is configured on the platform, payment (subscription checkout) is required before a garden is provisioned. Cancelled subscriptions are stopped; failed renewals receive a short grace window then stop. Fees are non-refundable except where required by law or expressly stated. Operator-only test environments may still use a no-charge stub path when Stripe keys are not set.
7. Availability & data
We aim for reasonable uptime on a shared VPS but do not guarantee uninterrupted service. Backups and retention policies evolve; do not treat the platform as your only copy of critical data. Container logs may be retained on a short rolling window (target ~7 days).
8. Open source
Hosted application code is AGPLv3-licensed Retrospring with RetroGarden packaging. Corresponding source is offered via our public repository (see Source).
9. Changes & contact
We may update these terms; material changes will be reflected by the “Last updated” date
on this page. Questions: contact the operator via the address published for
retrogarden.net operations (e.g. [email protected]).