Running Ten Self-Hosted Apps on One VPS: The Mechanics
Co-hosting self-hosted apps: one reverse proxy and loopback binds, shared vs per-app Postgres, memory caps on every container, one backup job, and when to split.
Read MoreSelf-Hosted Apps
Run self-hosted alternatives to SaaS on your own VPS: Immich, Vaultwarden, Supabase and more. 60 articles from the MassiveGRID engineering teams.
How to Self-Host Cal.com on an Ubuntu VPS
Self-host Cal.com on Ubuntu: the OAuth registration work, Docker deployment, the encryption key and build-time URL, timezone edge cases, email, and backups.
Read MoreHow to Self-Host PeerTube on an Ubuntu VPS
Self-host PeerTube on Ubuntu: transcoding, storage and bandwidth costs, where P2P actually helps, Docker deployment, tuning renditions, and object storage.
Read MoreReplacing Slack with Self-Hosted Mattermost: What a 200-Person Company Gains on PaaS
Slack's 90-day history limit and a client's data-residency clause pushed a 200-person firm to Mattermost. Here is what the move looked like, and what it costs per month.
Read MoreTaking Mattermost to Production on PaaS: Public IP, TLS, Firewall, Backups and Scaling
The install takes a click. Production takes a checklist: a certificate the mobile apps trust, a firewall that only opens 443, nightly database dumps and a node that grows on Monday mornings.
Read MoreChatOps with Self-Hosted Mattermost: Wiring GitLab, Deployment Hooks and Platform Load Alerts into One Channel
Every deploy, failed pipeline and memory alert lands in one Mattermost channel. The trick is that Mattermost speaks Slack's webhook format, so the platform's Slack add-on works unchanged.
Read MoreHow to Self-Host Mastodon on an Ubuntu VPS
Self-host Mastodon on Ubuntu: why federation sets the sizing, the five services, LOCAL_DOMAIN and the keys you cannot lose, media retention, Postgres tuning.
Read MoreOdoo Online vs Odoo.sh vs Self-Hosted Odoo Community on PaaS: A 25-Person Distributor Decides
Odoo Online will not run the custom module the warehouse needs. Odoo.sh needs Enterprise. A distributor prices the third option: Community Edition on a PaaS environment it owns.
Read MoreDeveloping Custom Odoo Modules Safely: A Cloned Staging Environment per Change on PaaS
The module worked on the developer's laptop and broke on production's data. A clone of production, updated with one command and deleted after lunch, is the fix that costs cents.
Read MoreOdoo at Month-End: Vertical Auto-Scaling, Worker Tuning and PostgreSQL Read Replicas on PaaS
Odoo was fine for 27 days and unusable for 3. The fix was not a bigger server all month: it was cloudlets that appear when accounting closes the books and disappear afterwards.
Read MoreA Practical Upgrade Strategy for Self-Hosted Applications
How to upgrade self-hosted apps safely: pin versions, read every release note you cross, plan for one-way migrations, rehearse on a restored copy, and record timings.
Read MoreHow to Self-Host GitLab on an Ubuntu VPS
Self-host GitLab CE on Ubuntu: whether you need it, real sizing, omnibus install and gitlab.rb, runners on separate hosts, the secrets file, and upgrade paths.
Read MoreMoodle for 8,000 Students: MoodleCloud, a Managed Partner or Self-Hosted Moodle on PaaS?
Exam week is 30 times a normal Tuesday and lasts nine days. An IT director prices three ways to host Moodle for a college, and finds the one whose bill follows the academic calendar.
Read MoreScaling Moodle for Exam Week on PaaS: Horizontal PHP Nodes, Redis Sessions and Cache, Shared Moodledata and One Cron
Four thousand students press Submit within the same ten minutes. Here is how a Moodle environment scales from two PHP nodes to seven, and the three things that must be shared for that to work.
Read MoreUpgrading Moodle and Testing Plugins Safely: A Cloned Environment for Every Change on PaaS
Moodle 4.x to the next LTS, twelve plugins, a custom theme and 8,000 students who notice everything. The administrator upgrades a clone first, times it, then does production in a known window.
Read MoreHow to Self-Host Rocket.Chat on an Ubuntu VPS
Self-host Rocket.Chat on Ubuntu: why MongoDB must be a replica set, sizing, pinning Node, ROOT_URL and oplog settings, websocket proxying, push limits and backups.
Read MoreSelf-Hosted Jitsi Meet vs Zoom and Teams: Why a 60-Person Law Firm Runs Its Own Video Server on PaaS
Clients should not need an account to join a privileged call, and the recording should never leave the firm. A managing partner prices a Jitsi server against 60 Zoom licences.
Read MoreJitsi Meet Capacity Planning on PaaS: Bandwidth Before CPU, Cloudlets by the Hour, and When to Add a Videobridge
Forty classrooms of fifteen students at 09:00, nothing at 15:00. The engineer works out what the videobridge really needs, lets the node scale by the hour, and knows when to add a second bridge.
Read MoreIntegrating a Self-Hosted Jitsi Server with Moodle, Nextcloud and Mattermost: One Video Backend, JWT Authentication, the IFrame API
Three applications, one video server. Moodle classes, Nextcloud calls and Mattermost meetings all open rooms on the same Jitsi, with a signed token saying who may create them.
Read MoreHow to Self-Host Penpot on an Ubuntu VPS
Self-host Penpot on Ubuntu: the five-container stack, sizing around the exporter, PENPOT_PUBLIC_URI and flags, websocket proxying, invitations by email, and backups.
Read MoreHow to Self-Host ERPNext on an Ubuntu VPS
Self-host ERPNext on Ubuntu: the five processes that must run, honest sizing, the easy install script, bench commands, the two data directories, and upgrade rehearsals.
Read MoreShould You Run Home Assistant on a VPS? An Honest Answer
Running Home Assistant on a VPS: which integrations break, the add-on store limitation, trusted_proxies, VPN options, and the architecture that works better.
Read MoreDrupal for a Government Portal: Sovereign, Highly Available Hosting on PaaS in Frankfurt
The procurement rules said EU data, named data centre, exit plan and 99.9% availability. A municipality's Drupal portal met all four on a PaaS environment rather than a hyperscaler contract.
Read MoreDrupal on PaaS for Developers: Composer Deploys from Git, Drush over Web SSH, Redis Caching and Scaling to a Second Node
Composer install, config import, cache rebuild, on every push, with no FTP in sight. The developer then adds Redis and a second PHP node when a campaign lands the site on national news.
Read MoreSelf-Host Discourse on Ubuntu VPS
Self-host Discourse on Ubuntu: why SMTP is mandatory, realistic sizing, the launcher and rebuild model, app.yml settings, backups that include uploads.
Read MoreRedmine vs Jira for a 60-Person Engineering Firm: Why Self-Hosted Project Tracking Won, and How It Runs on PaaS
Jira Cloud charged per user for a team where half the users only log time. Redmine gave the firm multi-project tracking, Gantt charts and time sheets on an environment it owns.
Read MoreosTicket vs Zendesk for a Growing Support Team: A Self-Hosted Help Desk on PaaS That Stops Charging per Agent
Twelve agents became twenty and the help desk bill doubled. osTicket runs the same queues, SLAs and customer portal on a PaaS environment where a new agent costs nothing.
Read MoreSelf-Host Forgejo on Ubuntu VPS: A Lightweight GitHub Alternative
Self-host Forgejo on Ubuntu: how it compares with GitLab, sizing, systemd setup, the app.ini settings that matter, Forgejo Actions and complete backups.
Read MoreLimeSurvey for University Research: GDPR-Compliant Surveys, Ethics Approval, and Surviving a 40,000-Invite Launch Day on PaaS
The ethics board wanted to know where 40,000 students' responses would live. A research office answers with a LimeSurvey environment in London that grows for launch day and shrinks after.
Read MoreA Mosquitto MQTT Broker on PaaS for a 5,000-Device Fleet: TLS on 8883, Per-Device Credentials, ACLs and Uptime
Five thousand sensors publishing every thirty seconds need a broker that is always there and trusts nobody by default. Here is a Mosquitto deployment that is both, on a node that costs a few dollars.
Read MoreSelf-Host Odoo on Ubuntu VPS: ERP on Your Own Infrastructure
Self-host Odoo Community on Ubuntu: the worker formula, production config, the longpolling port, PostgreSQL tuning, filestore backups and upgrade planning.
Read MoreSelf-Host Mattermost on Ubuntu VPS: A Slack Alternative You Control
Self-host Mattermost on Ubuntu: PostgreSQL setup, the site URL trap, nginx WebSocket proxying, file storage, backups, push notifications and hardening.
Read MoreHow Much RAM and CPU Does Each Self-Hosted App Actually Need
Real RAM, CPU and storage requirements for 22 self-hosted apps, why published minimums mislead, how to combine apps on one server, and how to measure.
Read MorePHP Content Management Systems on the Marketplace Compared: WordPress, Drupal, Joomla and MODX, Matched to Four Kinds of Site
Four PHP content systems, one click each, and a technical director who refuses to build every site on the same one. Here is which brief got which CMS, and why the platform made the choice cheap.
Read MoreJava CMS and Portal Platforms on the Marketplace Compared: Liferay, Magnolia, OpenCms, Ametys and Alfresco for Institutions
Five Java content systems that a card cannot distinguish. One is a portal, three are web CMSs of different weights, one is a document repository. A university sorts its needs across them.
Read Moredjango CMS on PaaS: A Content Site for a Python Team, Deployed from Git with Celery Workers and Redis Beside It
The team writes Python and did not want a PHP CMS to be the one thing they could not extend. django CMS gave them front-end editing inside a Django project they own end to end.
Read MoreFour Small Self-Hosted Tools for a Small Team on PaaS: DokuWiki, qdPM, Gitblit and WebMail Lite, for Less Than a Coffee a Week
A wiki, a project tracker, a Git server and a webmail client, each one click, each a few cloudlets. A six-person firm runs all four for less than one of the subscriptions they replaced.
Read MoreCyclos on PaaS: Running a Community Currency and Payment Platform That a Cooperative Controls End to End
A regional currency with 4,000 members needed a ledger it could trust and run itself. Cyclos gave the cooperative accounts, transfers and mobile payments; the platform gave it a home that stays up.
Read MoreSelf-Hosting Supabase with Dokploy: Complete Setup on HA Infrastructure
Self-Hosting Supabase with Dokploy: Why Self-Host Supabase, What Dokploy Deploys, Infrastructure Sizing, Step-by-Step Deployment and Configuration.
Read MoreThe True Cost of Self-Hosting Your Apps in 2026
The managed PaaS market has settled into a predictable pattern: low entry prices that balloon as your application grows.
Read MoreInstall Ghost CMS on Ubuntu VPS: Self-Hosted Publishing Platform
Install Ghost CMS on Ubuntu VPS: Ghost vs WordPress — When Ghost Makes More Sense, Prerequisites, Installing MySQL 8.0 and Installing Node.js.
Read MoreSet Up Jellyfin Media Server on Ubuntu VPS (Stream Your Media Library)
Set Up Jellyfin Media Server on Ubuntu VPS: Sizing Your VPS for Jellyfin, Prerequisites and Installing Jellyfin with Docker.
Read MoreSelf-Host MinIO on Ubuntu VPS: S3-Compatible Object Storage You Control
Self-Host MinIO on Ubuntu VPS: MinIO vs AWS S3 — When Self-Hosting Makes Sense, Prerequisites, Docker Compose Setup and Nginx Reverse Proxy with SSL.
Read MoreSelf-Host Umami Analytics on Ubuntu VPS (Replace Google Analytics)
Every time a visitor lands on your website, Google Analytics records their behavior — and Google gets to keep that data forever.
Read MoreSelf-Host Vaultwarden (Bitwarden) on Ubuntu VPS — Password Manager for Teams
Your passwords are the keys to your entire digital life — email, banking, servers, cloud infrastructure, client accounts.
Read MoreSelf-Host Uptime Kuma on Ubuntu VPS: Monitor Everything from One Dashboard
Self-Host Uptime Kuma on Ubuntu VPS: Why Self-Host Your Monitoring, The Golden Rule: Deploy on a Separate Server and Prerequisites.
Read MoreHow to Self-Host Plausible Analytics with Coolify on a VPS
Google Analytics collects data about your visitors and sends it to Google's servers. It requires cookie consent banners under GDPR.
Read MoreHow to Self-Host Uptime Kuma with Coolify (Server Monitoring on Your Infrastructure)
How to Self-Host Uptime Kuma with Coolify: Prerequisites, Deploying Uptime Kuma Through Coolify, Configuring Monitors and Setting Up Notification Channels.
Read MoreThe Self-Hosting Renaissance: Why Developers Are Taking Back Their Infrastructure in 2026
The Self-Hosting Renaissance: A Brief History of How We Deployed Things, The Catalysts Driving the Shift and The Enabling Technology: Open-Source PaaS Tools.
Read MoreSelf-Host Strapi Headless CMS on Ubuntu VPS: API-First Content Management
Strapi has become the leading open-source headless CMS for developers who want full control over their content architecture.
Read MoreSelf-Host Headscale on Ubuntu VPS: Build a Private Tailscale VPN Network
Self-Host Headscale on Ubuntu VPS: When to Choose Headscale Over Plain WireGuard, Prerequisites and Installing Headscale on Ubuntu.
Read MoreSelf-Host ntfy on Ubuntu VPS: Push Notifications for Your Infrastructure
Self-Host ntfy on Ubuntu VPS: Why Self-Host Your Notification Server, ntfy vs Gotify vs Pushover: Choosing the Right Tool and Prerequisites.
Read MoreSelf-Host Authentik on Ubuntu VPS: SSO and Identity Management for All Your Apps
Self-Host Authentik on Ubuntu VPS: Why Centralized Authentication Matters, Authentik vs Authelia vs Keycloak, Prerequisites and Docker Compose Setup.
Read MoreSelf-Host Stirling PDF on Ubuntu VPS: A Complete PDF Toolkit You Control
Self-Host Stirling PDF on Ubuntu VPS: Why Self-Host Your PDF Tools, Stirling PDF Feature Overview, Prerequisites and Docker Compose Deployment.
Read MoreSelf-Host Paperless-ngx on Ubuntu VPS: Go Paperless with Intelligent Document Management
Paper documents are a liability. They get lost, damaged, misfiled, and they resist every attempt at efficient search and retrieval.
Read MoreSelf-Host Matrix (Synapse + Element) on Ubuntu VPS: Private Team Chat and Messaging
Slack charges per user. Microsoft Teams locks you into the Microsoft ecosystem. Discord mines your data for advertising profiles.
Read MoreSelf-Host Immich on Ubuntu VPS: Build Your Own Google Photos Alternative
Every photo you upload to Google Photos trains Google's AI models, gets scanned for advertising insights, and lives on infrastructure you don't control.
Read MoreSelf-Host Outline on Ubuntu VPS: A Modern Notion Alternative for Teams
Self-Host Outline on Ubuntu VPS: Why Outline Stands Out as a Knowledge Base and Outline vs Notion vs BookStack: Choosing the Right Tool.
Read MoreSelf-Host Supabase on Ubuntu VPS: Open-Source Firebase Alternative
Self-Host Supabase on Ubuntu VPS: Why Self-Host Supabase, Supabase Cloud vs Self-Hosted: An Honest Comparison and Understanding Supabase Architecture.
Read MoreSelf-Host BookStack on Ubuntu VPS: Build Your Team's Knowledge Base and Wiki
Self-Host BookStack on Ubuntu VPS: Why Self-Host Your Documentation Platform and BookStack vs Confluence vs Wiki.js vs Notion.
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