SurrealDB Cloud is a managed service: SurrealDB runs in our environment, and you connect from Surrealist, the SDKs, or the HTTP and WebSocket APIs. Compared to the Surrealist Sandbox, you sign in (typically with an email) and your data persists in a proper cloud instance.
In Surrealist you can go from the Sandbox to Cloud with Deploy to Cloud, create an instance, and then point your connection at the new instance instead of Sandbox.
For day-to-day management of organisations, instances, and billing, use the documentation under SurrealDB Cloud in the Manage section.
When you are ready to self-host
To install the surreal server on your own hardware or VMs, follow Installation. That path gives you the same database engine, but you operate networking, storage, and upgrades yourself.