4 posts tagged with "LLMs"

May was a big month at Defang. We shipped support for managed LLMs in Playground, added MongoDB support on AWS, improved the Defang MCP Server, and dropped new AI samples to make deploying faster than ever.

🚀 Managed LLMs in Playground​

You can now try managed LLMs directly in the Defang Playground. Defang makes it easy to use cloud-native language models across providers — and now you can test them instantly in the Playground.

• Managed LLM support
• Playground-ready
• Available in CLI v1.1.22 or higher

To use managed language models in your own Defang services, just add x-defang-llm: true — Defang will configure the appropriate roles and permissions for you.

Already built on the OpenAI API? No need to rewrite anything.

With Defang's OpenAI Access Gateway, you can run your existing apps on Claude, DeepSeek, Mistral, and more — using the same OpenAI format.

Learn more here.

Try it out here.

📦 MongoDB Preview on AWS​

Last month, we added support for MongoDB-compatible workloads on AWS via Amazon DocumentDB.

Just add this to your compose.yaml:

services:
  db:
    x-defang-mongodb: true

Once you add x-defang-mongodb: true, Defang will auto-spin a DocumentDB cluster in your AWS — no setup needed.

🛠 MCP Server Improvements​

We've made the MCP Server and CLI easier to use and deploy:

• Users are now prompted to agree to Terms of Service via the portal login
• MCP Server and CLI are now containerized, enabling faster setup, smoother deployments, and better portability across environments

🌎 Events and Community​

We kicked off the month by sponsoring Vancouver's first Vibe Coding IRL Sprint. Jordan Stephens from Defang ran a hands-on workshop on "Ship AI Faster with Vertex AI" with GDG Vancouver (GDG Vancouver). Around the same time, our CTO and Co-founder Lio joined the GenAI Founders Fireside panel hosted by AInBC and AWS.

Big moment for the team — we won the Best Canadian Cloud Award at the Vancouver Cloud Summit. Right after, we hit the expo floor at Web Summit Vancouver as part of the BETA startup program and got featured by FoundersBeta as one of the Top 16 Startups to Watch.

Our Campus Advocates also kept the momentum going, hosting Defang events around the world with live demos and workshops.

Last month's Defang Coffee Chat brought together the community for product updates, live demos, and a great convo on vibe deploying.

We're back again on June 25 at 10 AM PST. Save your spot here.

We can't wait to see what you deploy with Defang. Join our Discord to ask questions, get support, and share your builds.

More coming in June.

April flew by with big momentum at Defang. From deeper investments in the Model Context Protocol (MCP), to deploying LLM-based inferencing apps, to live demos of Vibe Deploying, we're making it easier than ever to go from idea to cloud.

MCP + Vibe Deploying​

This month we focused on making cloud deployments as easy as writing a prompt. Our latest Vibe Deploying blog shows how you can launch full-stack apps right from your IDE just by chatting.

Whether you're working in Cursor, Windsurf, VS Code, or Claude, Defang's MCP integration lets you deploy to the cloud just as easily as conversing with the AI to generate your app. For more details, check out the docs for the Defang Model Context Protocol Server – it explains how it works, how to use it, and why it's a game changer for deploying to the cloud. You can also watch our tutorials for Cursor, Windsurf, and VS Code.

Managed LLMs​

Last month we shipped the x-defang-llm compose service extension to easily deploy inferencing apps that use managed LLM services such as AWS Bedrock. This month, we're excited to announce the same support for GCP Vertex AI – give it a try and let us know your feedback!

Events and Programs​

On April 28, we kicked things off with an epic night of demos, dev energy, and cloud magic at RAG & AI in Action. Our own Kevin Vo showed how fast and easy it is to deploy AI apps from Windsurf to the cloud using just the Defang MCP. The crowd got a front-row look at how Vibe Deploying turns cloud infra into a background detail.

We finished the month with our signature Defang Coffee Chat, a casual hangout with product updates, live Q&A, and great conversations with our community. Our Campus Advocates also hosted workshops around the world, bringing Defang to new students and builders.

We wrapped up the month with our latest Defang Coffee Chat, featuring live demos, product updates, and a solid conversation around vibe deploying. Thanks to everyone who joined.

The next one is on May 21 at 10 AM PST. Save your spot here.

Looking Ahead​

Here's what's coming in May:

• Web Summit Vancouver – Defang will be a startup sponsor, please come see us on the expo floor.
• More MCP tutorials and dev tools.

Let's keep building. 🚀

"I'm building a project, but it's not really coding. I just see stuff, say stuff, run stuff, and copy-paste stuff. And it mostly works."

– Andrej Karpathy

Welcome to the world of vibe coding, an AI-assisted, intuition-driven way of building software. You do not spend hours reading diffs, organizing files, or hunting through documentation. You describe what you want, let the AI take a pass, and keep iterating until it works.

The Tools of Vibe Coding

Vibe coding would not exist without a new generation of AI-first tools. Here are some of the platforms powering this new workflow.

• Cursor
• Windsurf
• VS Code / VS Code Insiders
• Claude Desktop

While each has it's own strengths and weaknesses, they all support the basic vibe coding workflow described above.

Using Defang for "Vibe Deployment"

Once your app runs locally with these vibe coding tools, the next question is: how do you get it live in the cloud so you can share it with the world?

That is where Defang comes in.

Defang takes your app, as specified in your docker-compose.yml, and deploys it to the public cloud (AWS, GCP, or DigitalOcean) or the Defang Playground with a single command. It is already used by thousands of developers around the world to deploy their projects to the cloud.

And now with the Defang MCP Server, you can "vibe deploy" your project right from your favorite IDE! Once you have the Defang MCP Server installed (see instructions here), just type in "deploy" (or any variation thereof) in the chat, it's that simple! It is built for hobbyists, vibe coders, fast-moving teams, and AI-powered workflows.

Currently, we support deployment to the Defang Playground only, but we'll be adding deployment to public cloud soon.

How it works:

The Defang MCP Server connects your coding editor (like VS Code or Cursor) with Defang's cloud tools, so you can ask your AI assistant to deploy your project just by typing a prompt. While natural language commands are by nature imprecise, the AI in your IDE translates that natural language prompt to a precise Defang command needed to deploy your application to the cloud. And your application also has a formal definition - the compose.yaml file - either something you wrote or the AI generated for you. So, the combination of a formal compose.yaml with a precise Defang command means that the resulting deployment is 100% deterministic and reliable. So the Defang MCP Server gives you the best of both worlds - the ease of use and convenience of natural language interaction with the AI, combined with the predictability and reliability of a deterministic deployment.

We are so excited to make Defang even more easy to use and accessible now to vibe coders. Give it a try and let us know what you think on our Discord!

Wow - another month has gone by, time flies when you're having fun!

Let us share some important updates regarding what we achieved at Defang in March:

Managed LLMs: One of the coolest features we have released in a bit is support for Managed LLMs (such as AWS Bedrock) through the x-defang-llm compose service extension. When coupled with the defang/openai-access-gateway service image, Defang offers the easiest way to migrate your OpenAI-compatible application to cloud-native managed LLMs without making any changes to your code. Support for GCP and DigitalOcean coming soon.

Defang Pulumi Provider: Last month, we announced a preview of the Defang Pulumi Provider, and this month we are excited to announce that V1 is now available in the Pulumi Registry. As much as we love Docker, we realize there are many real-world apps that have components that (currently) cannot be described completely in a Compose file. With the Defang Pulumi Provider, you can now leverage the declarative simplicity of Defang with the imperative power of Pulumi.

Production-readiness: As we onboard more customers, we are fixing many fit-n-finish items:

1. Autoscaling: Production apps need the ability to easily scale up and down with load, and so we've added support for autoscaling. By adding the x-defang-autoscaling: true extension to your service definition in Compose.yaml file, you can benefit from automatic scale out to handle large loads and scale in when load is low. Learn more here.

2. New CLI: We've been busy making the CLI more powerful, secure, and intelligent. • Smarter Config Handling: The new --random flag simplifies setup by generating secure, random config values, removing the need for manual secret creation. Separately, automatic detection of sensitive data in Compose files helps prevent accidental leaks by warning you before they are deployed. Together, these features improve security and streamline your workflow. • Time-Bound Log Tailing: Need to investigate a specific window? Use tail --until to view logs up to a chosen time—no more scrolling endlessly. Save time from sifting through irrelevant events and focus your investigation. • Automatic generation of a .dockerignore file for projects that don't already have one, saving you time and reducing image bloat. By excluding common unnecessary files—like .git, node_modules, or local configs—it helps keep your builds clean, fast, and secure right from the start, without needing manual setup.

3. Networking / Reduce costs: We have implemented private networks, as mentioned in the official Compose specification. We have also reduced costs by eliminating the need for a pricy NAT Gateway in "development mode" deployments!

Events and Programs​

In March, we had an incredible evening at the AWS Gen AI Loft in San Francisco! Our CTO and Co-founder Lionello Lunesu demoed how Defang makes deploying secure, scalable, production-ready containerized applications on AWS effortless. Check out the demo here!

We also kicked off the Defang Campus Advocate Program, bringing together advocates from around the world. After launching the program in February, it was amazing to see the energy and momentum already building on campuses world-wide. Just as one example, check out this post from one of the students who attended a session hosted by our Campus Advocate Swapnendu Banerjee and then went on to deploy his project with Defang. This is what we live for!

We wrapped up the month with our monthly Coffee Chat, featuring the latest Defang updates, live demos, and a conversation on vibe coding. Thanks to everyone who joined. The next one is on April 30. Save your spot here.

As always, we appreciate your feedback and are committed to making Defang even better. Deploy any app to any cloud with a single command. Go build something awesome!