How to delete your Porter account

About deleting your Porter account

Porter acts as an Internal Developer Platform (IDP) that sits on top of your own cloud infrastructure, specifically designed to automate Kubernetes deployments and manage cloud resources. By abstracting away the complexities of YAML configurations and cluster management, Porter connects directly to your cloud provider (like AWS, GCP, or DigitalOcean) to manage workloads, databases, and networking.

Users often decide to delete their Porter accounts when migrating to a self-managed infrastructure, switching to a different PaaS provider, or consolidating their DevOps tooling. Because Porter maintains persistent connections to your cloud accounts, terminating your subscription and deleting your user profile is a critical step in ensuring that your infrastructure remains under your sole control.

• Streamlining deployment pipelines via a GUI-based interface.
• Managing sensitive database connections and environment variables.
• Monitoring cluster health and application logs.

What happens to your data

When you initiate the deletion process for your Porter account, the service typically removes your user profile, authentication tokens, and the project configurations associated with your identity. However, it is essential to understand that Porter operates on a 'managed' model where the infrastructure itself resides in your own cloud provider account.

Data removed upon deletion includes:

• User account credentials and profile metadata.
• Project-specific configuration history stored within Porter's control plane.
• Activity logs generated through the Porter dashboard.
• Saved OAuth tokens linking Porter to your external cloud providers.

Notably, while Porter removes its control plane records, your underlying cloud resources—such as Kubernetes clusters, RDS instances, and S3 buckets—remain in your cloud provider account unless you manually delete them before closing your Porter profile. You must ensure all orphaned resources created by Porter are decommissioned to avoid ongoing cloud costs.

Privacy considerations

Using a platform like Porter involves granting extensive IAM permissions, which poses unique privacy and security considerations. Because the service interacts with your production environment, it has visibility into deployment patterns, environment configurations, and potentially sensitive metadata related to your software architecture.

To maximize your privacy:

• Audit and revoke IAM roles created for Porter in your AWS/GCP/Azure IAM console after account deletion.
• Review your cloud provider’s access logs to ensure no persistent API keys linked to Porter remain active.
• Explicitly disconnect Porter from any Git providers (like GitHub or GitLab) by revoking OAuth access in your repository settings.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does deleting my Porter account delete my Kubernetes cluster?

No, deleting your account removes your access to the Porter dashboard but does not automatically destroy your cloud infrastructure or Kubernetes clusters.

Will I still be billed by my cloud provider after deleting Porter?

Yes, since Porter manages resources within your existing cloud account, you must manually clean up your cloud provider console to stop incurring costs.

How long does it take for my data to be wiped from Porter servers?

Once a deletion request is processed, Porter typically purges your configuration data according to their standard data retention and privacy policies.

Can I recover my Porter projects after deletion?

Account deletion is usually permanent. Once the account is deleted, all stored project configurations and dashboard history are non-recoverable.

Should I revoke IAM permissions before deleting my Porter account?

Yes, it is best practice to revoke any cross-account access or IAM roles you granted to Porter before proceeding with account deletion to ensure complete isolation.

What happens to my Git integrations after I close my account?

While the link to the Porter application is severed, you should manually revoke the OAuth application permissions inside your GitHub or GitLab settings for maximum security.