India
8:31 PM
Frappe builds open source business software like ERPNext, CRM, and Builder. To run these apps, users need somewhere to host them, and that is what Frappe Cloud does.
Over time the existing product, v1, had grown complex. It showed everything at once: your sites, your servers, and plenty that didn't matter to someone simply running ERPNext for their small business. It also treated four very different users the same way, so it served none of them well.
V2 was initiated to make hosting simple enough to start on day one, without taking away the control experienced users rely on.
Timeline
2 months
Role
Product Design
Team
Three designers, collaborating with engineering and the founder
Status
Shipped
Getting the structure right first
The issue wasn’t that v1 lacked features. It was that too many things competed for attention. Users had to understand how the product was organized before they could get to what they came for.
Frappe cloud v1:
We needed to rethink the information hierarchy, simplify key flows, and design around different user types instead of showing everything in one place. So we spent two weeks on the sitemap before touching visual design, mapping flows, cutting clutter, and deciding what actually mattered to each user type. All of this came out of working sessions in FigJam.
We also built a Claude demo using our design system and hosted it on Vercel so the team could explore it. Once the sitemap was finalized, we used the demo to refine the UX, test interactions, and work through edge cases across our personas.
The demo brought our personas and their interactions together, helping us validate the UX and information hierarchy before moving into final UI design in Figma.
All of this work led to three connected parts of Frappe Cloud v2:
Atlas is the virtual machine management layer and has no interface
Central is where you buy and manage a server in your region, from providers like AWS.
Pilot is essentially a single server where your sites live.
Once we had the structure in place, we divided the work.
My focus: Pilot
The idea behind Pilot was simple: show your sites and server information, make it easy to browse the Frappe Marketplace, install apps, and use your sites.
I focused on making frequently used tasks easy to find, while keeping advanced settings and less frequent actions available when needed.
The site screens
The site detail page was one of the most important parts of my work. It brings together the information and actions related to an individual site, so I explored multiple layouts and iterations to find a structure that felt clear without hiding useful functionality.
Iterations:
At the same time, we had been looking at a book of minimal product design, where the best examples created contrast with shape, colour or texture rather than by adding more to the screen.
Inspired by that, I tried graphs, lines and a few patterns. The dotted texture was the direction I carried forward. It added a distinct visual detail while staying subtle enough to work alongside the product UI. A similar treatment was also being explored in Central, so it could become a shared visual element across v2 rather than a one-off detail on Pilot.
The final direction organizes the site’s information into clear sections, using as minimal design as possible, so users can focus on the task they came to do rather than scanning one long list of unrelated controls.
Marketplace
The Marketplace is where users find apps to add to their sites. In the previous experience, it had more than 20 categories, and a long list of apps that was difficult to scan.
Based on past support tickets, there was another important problem: some apps depend on other Frappe apps to work. Users couldn’t easily tell which apps were compatible before installing them, so they could discover a requirement only after starting the process.
The revised marketplace
Bringing the flow together
Finding an app is only part of the task. The real flow starts earlier, on your sites, and it is not finished until the app is running on the one you picked.
So I designed it as one connected path.
Designing onboarding for first-time users
People arrive from a product page like ERPNext or CRM wanting that app, with no idea what Frappe Cloud is or why they need a server at all.
I designed onboarding for this entry point, revealing information only as it becomes relevant, so nobody has to understand hosting to get their first site running.
The outcome
This is built and shipped, and because Frappe is open source, you can install it and try it yourself.
Github Repo
What I’d measure next
The product is shipped, but I don’t yet have verified adoption or usability metrics to include here. To understand the impact of the rework, I’d look at measures such as:
How many new users complete onboarding and create their first site.
How often users successfully install an app from the Marketplace.
How long common tasks take, such as finding a site or installing an app.
Where users get stuck or abandon onboarding and installation.
These would help connect the design changes to actual user behavior.