Hathora is a server orchestration platform purpose-built for multiplayer games. Game developers use Hathora to deploy their game servers globally without worrying about infrastructure complexity.
We spoke with co-founder and CTO Harsh Pandey to learn how Depot became a crucial part of Hathora’s platform architecture.
The Challenge
Game developers use our platform to host their game servers. But most game developers don’t have Docker installed, and don’t have a lot of familiarity with Docker.
One of the core technical decisions made early on by co-founder and CTO Harsh Pandey was to use containers as the interface between game developers and Hathora’s infrastructure. But there was a challenge: most game developers either don’t have Docker installed, or aren’t familiar with it entirely.
Hathora needed a seamless way to handle Docker image builds for users, without asking them to build locally, push to registries, and do the underlying learning necessary to accomplish these tasks in the first place.
So, Harsh and his team built a flow where users simply upload their code and a Dockerfile, and Hathora handles the rest. “Instead of having them push to a registry which would involve them building their images locally,” he said, “we like the convenience of letting them upload their files directly, and we do the building on our side. So all we require is that they have a Dockerfile.”
Handling Docker image builds for users made a reliable, flexible, and fast Docker build service a critical piece of Hathora’s infrastructure. However, anyone who’s tried to build this type of core infrastructure service from scratch knows that it’s easier said than done.
The Solution
Depot is a great choice for people building hosting platforms, and now with the Share URLs, Depot has a lot of functionality that can directly benefit the end user.
This challenge prompted Hathora to integrate Depot into the platform early on. “We adopted Depot very early,” Harsh said. “The first version of our publicly launched product had Depot integrated.”
Hathora uses Depot at an API level behind the scenes to perform hundreds of builds per day on behalf of their customers. As Harsh puts it, it’s a critical tool that delivers exactly what they need. “It’s become a pretty critical part of infrastructure for us,” he said. “This is how our game developers get their game servers over to our platform.”
One of the newest additions to their integration is also one of Harsh’s favorites: Depot Share URLs. Before Share URLs, if a customer’s build failed or they accidentally refreshed the page, they lost access to logs and diagnostics. Now, they have a complete view of their build history – powered by Depot – with no extra work from the Hathora team.
“We had this gap for a long time in our platform where our customers couldn't view historical build details,” Harsh said. “It’s pretty seamless for us because we don't have to store those logs and replicate the Depot native functionality.”
And even though Depot was originally invisible to end users, Harsh told us that’s changed for the better. “Effectively, our customers are also now interacting with Depot directly. Customers can gain insights about their Docker build, they can get hints about what might be inefficient or what might not be the best practice.”
“This is value that our customers are getting without us building anything, because Depot builds it,” Harsh said.
The Impact
Depot is fulfilling a critical role in our infrastructure.
Today, Hathora relies on Depot to execute hundreds of builds a day across its infrastructure. It's a stable, invisible engine that “just works” and provides value to both the platform team and Hathora customers.
For Hathora, “Depot does one job, and it does it well,” Harsh said, adding that because Depot plays such a crucial role in Hathora’s infrastructure, the cost-to-value ratio of Depot is a no-brainer.
“I think other hosting platforms should consider Depot,” Harsh told us. “It’s kind of one of those B2B2C things.” Harsh emphasized Depot’s value to companies building hosting platforms, particularly because of Share URLs, as this feature provides direct visibility into builds, directly benefitting the end user.
Looking Ahead
Hathora is watching both Depot’s GitHub Actions runners and Registry closely. “I’m excited about the Depot registry product,” Harsh said. “It creates an entirely new value chain for us, as registries are a bit of a pain point for us. They’re expensive and slow, and since our containers are pulled all across the globe, we want registries close to our worker nodes.”
For Harsh and Hathora, Depot isn’t just a convenience: It’s a foundational service that helps them move faster, reduce friction, and deliver a better experience to developers around the world.