A .onion site is reached through Tor, commonly with Tor Browser. Its network properties do not replace application authentication or prevent an app from exposing information through external services. This guide covers a persistent onion site; for temporary reviews, see Git branch previews over Tor.
Hosting, MCP and Tor in one platform
Impreza combines hosting infrastructure, app deployment and native Tor controls. With a compatible AI assistant connected through MCP, you can provision infrastructure, publish a supported app and manage its onion access and identity. You can also use the portal or REST API.
To manage your deployment in Tor Browser, open the Impreza customer portal. This is the platform’s address; your app receives its own onion address.
Publishing an onion app and connecting your assistant through Tor are separate choices. A compatible client can use Impreza’s onion API or hosted MCP endpoint through Tor. Opening a browser consent page in Tor Browser alone does not route the client’s other requests through Tor. Your AI provider still processes the prompts and tool results you send it.
What you get
- A v3 .onion address, the modern long-format hidden service
- Offshore hosting for a persistent onion service, subject to the service terms and applicable rules
- Account ID signup without a personal email address, a recovery code and crypto payment options
- For eligible agent-managed apps: Tor client authorization, protection profiles and encrypted identity export
The steps
Get a server
Use Tor Hosting on a VM or Dedicated Tor Hosting on bare metal. Sign up with no KYC (a unique Account ID and recovery code if you prefer no email) and pay in crypto.
Put your service online
Choose the workflow your server actually uses. Tor Hosting with aaPanel uses Tor Manager and Onion Guard. Apps managed by the Impreza Agent use the platform deployment tools. Ordering the panel-based product does not mean it includes the same app lifecycle tools as an agent-managed deployment.
For aaPanel, follow the Community tutorial with screenshots. The Tor Hosting VM and Dedicated Tor Hosting pages describe the same panel tools on different infrastructure; do not assume their checkout options are identical.
For a supported app deployment, confirm the Impreza Agent is installed and online, deploy the app, and check that its web service works before adding Tor access.
Add the .onion hidden service
In the aaPanel workflow, use Tor Manager and follow the Community tutorial for Onion Guard configuration. In the Impreza Agent workflow, use the supported app’s Tor action and collect the resulting hostname. Check the operation’s result; an accepted request is not proof that the website is reachable.
Open the resulting address in Tor Browser and test the pages and sign-in your users need. An app with an onion address can still have public HTTP or other open ports. Review those routes separately if you intend to allow access only through Tor.
Keep it private
Serve assets from the same origin and avoid third-party fonts, analytics and CDNs that would leak metadata. Keep the content self-contained so nothing points back to the clearnet.
For a supported Impreza Agent deployment, your assistant can help publish and inspect the app through an authorized MCP connection. Confirm the deployment and available actions first. Do not apply the app workflow to an aaPanel service just because both offer onion hosting.
A hidden service hides the server, not a leaky app. Avoid clearnet redirects, external scripts and anything that phones home.
Control who can reach an agent-managed onion app
On supported deployments, My Apps and Impreza MCP let you authorize specific Tor clients using their public keys. Give a generated private key only to its intended user and save it when shown. Check that an authorized client can connect and a separate unauthorized client cannot. Application login remains a separate layer.
These controls require agent 0.6.19 or later and the corresponding advertised capabilities. Local MCP requires 0.41.0 or later. Existing servers need an explicit agent update; installing a newer MCP client does not update your server. Account permissions still apply.
Removing the final authorized client makes the onion service public to Tor visitors again. Authorization changes restart the shared Tor daemon and can briefly interrupt onion connections for other apps on the same server. Check the completed command before treating the policy as active.
Choose a Tor protection profile
The standard, hardened and max profiles provide different Tor settings. Hardened adds stream limits; max adds proof-of-work controls when the Tor runtime supports them. These profiles do not replace app login or a web application firewall, and they do not guarantee immunity from denial-of-service attacks.
Review the Tor controls and prerequisites before choosing a profile. The agent checks compatibility before applying a supported initial profile or a later change. These are Impreza Agent features; use the separate Tor Manager and Onion Guard instructions for aaPanel.
Maintain and recover the right environment
For apps managed by the Impreza Agent, use app inspection and review the app backup and restore guide for supported storage and recovery limits. These tools do not automatically cover an aaPanel website or every file on a server.
Preserving website data and preserving an onion address are separate recovery requirements. Eligible agent-managed apps support encrypted onion identity export to a recipient key you control. Keep the recipient private key safe: without it, the export cannot be decrypted. The completed export can be retrieved once; a lost retrieval response requires a new export.
Importing an identity into a new deployment requires its matching Tor secret and public key files. Existing address reservations can prevent reuse, including after uninstall or rotation; contact support before moving an already-used identity. An app migration does not automatically transfer that identity.
Rotation creates a different onion address and breaks old links. It preserves the configured authorization list and profile, but interrupted changes need reconciliation. Review identity export, import and rotation before a reinstall or move. Keep an independent, tested backup of the application data.
Temporary Git branch previews over Tor are a different workflow with compatibility requirements and expiry. They do not replace a persistent production onion site.
Start now
Pick Tor Hosting or an offshore VPS, and read the step by step in our docs.