Deployment guides
The workloads that never stop running.
Self-hosted tools are easy to start and awkward to keep alive. These guides cover what each one actually needs — the database, the volume, the restart behaviour — and what it costs a month.
There is a particular class of software that is trivial to run for an afternoon and genuinely annoying to run for a year. Automation tools, chat bots, publishing platforms: they hold state, they need a database, they must come back by themselves after a restart, and the tutorial you followed stopped at "docker run".
Each guide below starts from the same place — a repository or an image — and ends with something that survives a reboot, keeps its data, and has a bill you can predict.
- What these workloads share
- They run continuously, hold state, and break in ways that only show up after a restart
- What they need
- A container, a managed database, a persistent volume, and a restart policy that works
- Typical cost
- $5–$20 a month of infrastructure for a single always-on service with a small database
- Free plan
- One workspace, three services and three databases — enough to run one of these end to end
Why "self-hosted" usually means "self-maintained"
The appeal of self-hosting is the bill. The cost is everything the managed version was quietly doing: keeping the process alive, holding the data somewhere that survives the container, renewing the certificate, and noticing when it stops.
Running these on a platform rather than a bare VPS keeps the bill close to the VPS price while putting the restart, the volume, the database and the certificate back under someone else's responsibility.
Guides in this section
- Deploy n8nDeploy n8n so workflows and credentials survive a restart: managed Postgres, a persistent volume, and the key that breaks it.
- Host a Discord BotHost a Discord bot that stays online: deployed from your repository, token stored as a secret, and nothing that sleeps.
- Deploy GhostSelf-host Ghost with managed MySQL, a persistent volume for uploaded images and a custom domain with TLS. What it costs a month.
Read next
- Persistent volumes and snapshotsPersistent volumes and snapshots on Dockup: choose mount paths, inspect usage, take and schedule snapshots, restore safely, and protect durable data.
- The managed PostgreSQL guideManaged PostgreSQL on Dockup: create a database, connect a service securely, inspect size and logs, back up data, restore safely, and add read-only users.
- Zero-downtime deploymentsLearn how to deploy your applications without any service interruption using rolling updates and blue-green deployment strategies.
- A Linux box with root, in the cloudLinux cloud boxes on Dockup: choose seven distributions, provision CPU and RAM, retrieve SSH access, configure the operating system, and compare containers.
- A Windows VM you reach over RDPWindows VM in the cloud with Dockup: choose Server 2019/2022/2025 or Windows 10/11, provision CPU and RAM, retrieve RDP access, and operate securely.
Questions this page gets asked
What does a self-hosted tool cost to run per month?
A single always-on service with a small managed database is roughly $15–$20 of metered infrastructure. On the Pro plan the first $20 each month is included in the fee.
Will it survive a restart?
Yes, if its data is on a persistent volume or in a managed database rather than inside the container filesystem. Each guide says exactly which parts need to live where.
Can I run these on the free plan?
One of them, yes. Free allows one workspace with three services and three databases, and grants $10 of infrastructure credit at signup.
Start on the free plan.
Ten dollars of infrastructure credit is already there, and no card is required.