What happens if ManualHost ceases to exist
An operating manual has to stay reachable for the life of the machine, often longer than a software vendor exists. This page sets out, without varnish, what applies in that case.
The problem we are not talking around
ManualHost is a young company. The machines whose manuals live here run for 15 to 30 years. The chance that this company outlives every one of those machines is not 100 percent, and any vendor telling you otherwise is selling a promise they cannot keep.
That is why ManualHost is built so that you do not depend on our survival. The assurance is not a pledge but the technical construction: you can leave the service at any time without our involvement and keep serving the same addresses yourself.
Your data is yours: always, on every plan
From the dashboard you can generate a complete export as a ZIP archive at any time. It contains every PDF in the folder structure pdfs/<product>/<version>/<language>.pdf, a manifest.json with the full URL structure (product slugs, version labels, language paths, short codes and the mapping of serial number ranges to versions), and instructions for serving exactly the same URLs yourself.
The export is included on every plan, the free one included. An exit right tied to a payment is not an exit right.
Printed QR codes stay valid
The critical issue in a shutdown is the QR codes already stuck to type plates. They cannot be recalled. That is precisely why the export ships with a README containing concrete configuration rules for Apache and nginx, so the same paths serve the same documents from your own server.
It gets more robust with your own domain: use your own domain for the manuals from the start and the printed codes already point at an address you own. Switching provider is then a DNS change. That is why a custom domain is deliberately included on every ManualHost plan and is not a paid-tier feature.
What happens in the worst case
Should the service be discontinued, a notice period of at least twelve months applies, during which the service continues unchanged. In that period all published addresses stay reachable and the export stays available.
The exact sequence is described in the exit procedure, which you can download as a draft from the legal page. It is deliberately written so that it remains followable without our involvement.
What you can do today
First: register your own domain before the first labels are printed. Second: download the export once and check whether you could serve it yourself. Third: add the export to your regular backup.
Anyone who has taken those three steps is protected against any vendor disappearing, ours included.
Questions about continuity?
We answer questions about exit, data ownership and custom domains directly and in writing.