Over the past few years, I've experimented with many hosting providers while building AI applications, automation workflows, and self-hosted infrastructure.
Recently, I consolidated several services onto a single VPS using Docker, with the goal of reducing costs while keeping deployment and maintenance simple.
The Stack
The server currently runs:
- Docker & Docker Compose
- PostgreSQL
- Traefik Reverse Proxy
- n8n
- Vaultwarden
- Uptime Kuma
- AI services
- Other personal projects
Everything runs in isolated containers, making updates and backups much easier.
Why Docker?
Using Docker provides several advantages:
- Consistent deployments
- Easy backups and migrations
- Better resource utilization
- Simplified updates
- Cleaner infrastructure management
Instead of configuring each application directly on the server, every service has its own container and configuration.
Why This Setup?
My goals were:
- Reduce monthly infrastructure costs
- Keep everything self-hosted
- Make deployments reproducible
- Learn production-grade DevOps practices
For personal projects and small teams, this setup has worked well.
Lessons Learned
A few things made the biggest difference:
- Always use automated backups.
- Monitor CPU, RAM, and disk usage.
- Keep Docker images updated.
- Use HTTPS from day one.
- Store secrets securely instead of hardcoding them.
Hosting
For this deployment, I used a Hostinger VPS because it matched my budget and performed well for my workload.
If you're planning to build a similar self-hosted environment and would like a discount, you can use my referral link:
[https://www.hostinger.com?REFERRALCODE=IMNAZEEZAYOP]
Disclosure: This is a referral link. If you purchase through it, you may receive a discount, and I may earn a referral reward at no additional cost to you.
What's Next?
I'm planning to publish detailed guides covering:
- Docker deployment best practices
- Running n8n in production
- Hosting Odoo with Docker
- AI infrastructure on a VPS
- Backup and monitoring strategies
If you're interested, let me know what you'd like to see next.
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