Sign in Subscribe
coolify

Ditching Expensive Hosting: How to Set Up Coolify on DigitalOcean 🚀

Tales Marinho Godois

• 2 min read
Share
Ditching Expensive Hosting: How to Set Up Coolify on DigitalOcean 🚀

Welcome back to the Blog do Tales! As I mentioned in my welcome post, this is the space where I dive into programming, tech trends, and life behind the keyboard. Today, we are talking about a game-changer for developers: Coolify.

If you've ever used Heroku, Vercel, or Netlify, you know how incredibly convenient it is to just push your code and have it deployed. But as your projects scale, so do the bills. Enter Coolify: an open-source, self-hostable alternative that gives you that sweet PaaS (Platform as a Service) experience on your own servers.

Here is a quick and straightforward guide on how to get Coolify up and running on a DigitalOcean droplet.

🛠️ Prerequisites

Before we begin, you will need:

  • A DigitalOcean account.
  • A basic understanding of using the terminal.
  • A domain name (optional, but highly recommended for routing).

Step 1: Spin Up a Droplet

First, we need a server to host our Coolify instance.

  1. Log in to DigitalOcean and click Create -> Droplets.
  2. Choose an Image: Select Ubuntu (22.04 LTS or newer is perfect).
  3. Choose a Size: Coolify does a lot of heavy lifting under the hood using Docker. I highly recommend at least 2 vCPUs and 2GB of RAM (the $12-$18/month tier). If you go smaller, the installation might fail due to lack of memory.
  4. Authentication: Add your SSH keys for secure access.
  5. Click Create Droplet.

Step 2: SSH Into Your Server

Once your Droplet is ready, copy its public IPv4 address. Open your terminal and connect to it as the root user:

ssh root@<your_droplet_ip>

Step 3: Run the Magic Install Script

Coolify makes installation incredibly easy. Once you are logged into your server, simply paste the following command to download and run their official installation script:

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

Grab a cup of coffee! ☕ This script will automatically update your system, install Docker, pull the necessary containers, and set up the Coolify dashboard. It usually takes about 5 to 10 minutes.

Step 4: Access Your Dashboard

Once the script finishes, it will give you a local address. Open your web browser and navigate to:

http://<your_droplet_ip>:8000

You will be greeted by the Coolify setup screen. Register your initial admin account, link your GitHub or GitLab repository, and you are officially ready to deploy your apps with a single click!

Self-hosting gives you back control over your infrastructure, and Coolify makes it painless. Have you ever tried self-hosting your own applications, or do you prefer managed services? Let me know!