xTom - How to Set Up Coolify - A Self-Hosted PaaS/Heroku Alternative for Deploying Apps with Ease

Coolify is a free and open-source platform designed to simplify the self-hosting process for your applications, databases, and services (like WordPress, Plausible Analytics, Ghost) without the headache of managing servers.

It’s an alternative to platforms like Heroku, Netlify, and Vercel, but with the flexibility of being self-hosted, allowing you to retain control over your data and infrastructure.

In this guide, we’ll walk through how to install Coolify on your server and the benefits it provides to developers and teams. We’ll also cover different hosting options, including VPS, dedicated servers, and even self-hosting at home with a Raspberry Pi.

First things first, though:

What is a PaaS?

Coolify is a PaaS (Platform as a Service), which means it simplifies the deployment and management of applications by abstracting away the underlying server management.

This allows you to focus on building and running your applications without the need to manually configure infrastructure, databases, or SSL certificates.

With Coolify, you get the flexibility of a cloud service but hosted on your own infrastructure.

The main advantages are:

Ease of use: Coolify simplifies deploying and managing apps across various environments.
Cost savings: Since you’re using your own servers, you avoid high fees associated with cloud platforms.
Full control: Self-hosting means you control your infrastructure, data, and settings.

Why use Coolify?

If you’ve ever managed Docker containers, databases, or backups manually, you know how time-consuming it can be. Coolify automates much of this, letting you deploy apps, services, and databases through a web interface.

Here’s why it stands out:

Multi-language support: Coolify is compatible with a wide range of programming languages and frameworks, enabling you to deploy static websites, APIs, backends, databases, and services.
Deploy anywhere: You can deploy on any server without being locked in expensive cloud ecosystems.
Automatic SSL: Free SSL certificates from Let’s Encrypt are set up and renewed automatically for your custom domains.
Automated backups: Coolify backs up your databases to S3-compatible storage automatically, so you can restore with ease.
Collaboration tools: Coolify supports team collaboration with role-based access and pull request deployments for efficient teamwork.

Getting started with Coolify

To start using Coolify, you need a server. This could be a VPS, a dedicated server, a Raspberry Pi at home, or really any machine with SSH access.

Which hosting option is right for you?

The right hosting solution for Coolify depends on the scale and complexity of your project.

Dedicated server

A dedicated server gives you complete control over all hardware resources, making it a good fit for resource-intensive projects.

If you’re running multiple apps, managing large databases, or dealing with heavy traffic, a dedicated server ensures consistent performance without sharing resources with other users.

Being that we're on xTom's blog right now, I'll take this opportunity to mention that xTom offers high-performance dedicated servers suitable for production environments where uptime and resource availability are critical (as well as colocation, transit, or really anything and everything you'd need to power your digital infrastructure).

Pros: Full resource control, dedicated resources.
Cons: Higher cost, less scalable.

VPS (virtual private server)

A VPS is a cost-effective and flexible solution, offering access to a portion of a server’s resources.

It’s ideal for smaller projects, development environments, or light production workloads where you don’t need the full power of a dedicated server (or microservices, where you split different parts of your workflow/application onto its own respective VPS while still cohesively working together).

Speaking of VPS, though, we offer KVM VPS hosting through our V.PS brand, which is perfect for Coolify. It’s a great balance between affordability, scalability, and control.

Pros: Affordable, flexible, and easy to scale.
Cons: Shared resources might affect performance during high traffic.

Self-hosting at home or on a Raspberry Pi

For smaller personal projects or learning, you can even host Coolify at home using a Raspberry Pi.

This is a low-cost option for developers who want to experiment or run lightweight apps, but it’s not ideal for production environments due to performance and security limitations.

One downside of hosting from home is the need to expose your network to the public, which comes with security risks. However, you can mitigate this by using Cloudflare Tunnels to securely expose your services without directly exposing your home network.

Pros: Extremely low cost, good for learning and small-scale projects.
Cons: Limited resources, home internet limitations, security risks without proper precautions.

Step 1: Server requirements

Here are the minimum requirements you’ll need to install Coolify on your server:

Supported operating systems

Debian-based Linux distributions (e.g., Ubuntu, Debian)
Redhat-based Linux distributions (e.g., CentOS, Fedora)
SUSE-based Linux distributions (e.g., openSUSE)
Arch Linux
Raspberry Pi OS

Supported architectures

AMD64 (for standard servers)
ARM64 (for Raspberry Pi or ARM-based servers)

Minimum server specs

2 CPUs
2 GB RAM
30+ GB storage

(Note: Our "Pro" plan on V.PS covers all of this and more for just €9.95 monthly. I usually go with Debian or Ubuntu.)

If you plan to run multiple apps or databases, consider allocating more resources to ensure a smooth experience.

Step 2: Install Coolify automatically

Coolify’s installation process is designed to be straightforward.

Here’s how to set it up:

1. Connect to your server

Use SSH to connect to your server.

For example:

ssh root@<your-server-ip>

2. Run the installation script

Install Coolify by running the following command:

curl -fsSL https://cdn.coollabs.io/coolify/install.sh | bash

This script will install Coolify along with Docker, which Coolify uses to run and manage apps.

3. Access the Coolify interface

Once installed, you can access Coolify’s web interface via your server’s IP address on port 8000:

http://<your-server-ip>:8000

On first page load, it'll ask you to create the admin account.

Then after that, you can either select that you want to deploy resources on localhost, or to a remote server. For the majority, this will be localhost (the same server your installing Coolify on). Remote servers are for complex infrastructures with apps running on separate servers.

Step 3: Start deploying apps with Coolify

Once Coolify is installed and configured, deploying apps is simple.

Coolify user interface

You can deploy practically anything you'd like, including:

Static websites (e.g., Jekyll, Hugo, Next.js)
APIs and backends (e.g., Node.js, Python, PHP)
Databases (e.g., PostgreSQL, MySQL, Redis)

Coolify handles the setup of Docker containers, databases, and web services behind the scenes, freeing you from manual configurations.

Conclusion

If you’re looking for full control over your infrastructure with the ease of a PaaS, Coolify offers a flexible, open-source, and free solution.

With features like automatic SSL, Git-based deployments, database backups, and more, it’s an excellent alternative to managed platforms like Heroku and Vercel, especially if you prefer to keep everything under your control.

Whether you’re working on a small development project, running a personal site, or managing multiple production apps, Coolify gives you the flexibility to deploy anywhere—from a VPS or dedicated server to a Raspberry Pi at home.

Give it a try! After all, it's free and if you hate it, you can just go back to what you know and love ;-).