Dokploy is an open-source, self-hosted PaaS, a free alternative to Heroku, Vercel, and Netlify, that deploys apps from Git, manages databases, and routes traffic with Traefik's automatic HTTPS. This guide installs Dokploy on Ubuntu 24.04, deploys a sample app from a public GitHub repo, attaches a custom domain with a Let's Encrypt certificate, provisions a one-click PostgreSQL database, and checks the resource monitoring dashboard. By the end, you'll have a working PaaS running an app and a database behind HTTPS.
Prerequisite: Ubuntu 24.04 server, non-root sudo user, DNS A records for two subdomains (e.g. dokploy.example.com for the dashboard, app.example.com for your app).
Install Dokploy
1. Update packages:
$ sudo apt update
2. Run the installer (installs Docker if missing, sets up Swarm mode, deploys the Dokploy stack):
$ curl -sSL https://dokploy.com/install.sh | sudo sh
Congratulations, Dokploy is installed!
Wait 15 seconds for the server to
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