Coolify Has a Free Self-Hosted Platform — Here's How to Deploy Apps Without Paying for Vercel

#coolify #selfhosted #deployment #devops

A solo developer told me: 'I had 3 Next.js apps on Vercel. My bill hit $120/month for hobby projects. I moved everything to a $5 VPS with Coolify. Same auto-deploy, same HTTPS, $5/month total.'

What Coolify Offers

Coolify is a self-hosted, open-source Vercel/Netlify/Heroku alternative:

Deploy anything — Node.js, Python, Go, Rust, Docker, static sites
Git push to deploy — automatic deployments from GitHub/GitLab
Free HTTPS — automatic Let's Encrypt certificates
One-click databases — PostgreSQL, MySQL, Redis, MongoDB, MariaDB
Reverse proxy — Traefik built in
API — manage everything programmatically
Docker Compose support — deploy complex stacks
Runs on any VPS — Hetzner, DigitalOcean, etc.

Quick Start

# Install on any Ubuntu/Debian VPS
curl -fsSL https://cdn.coollabs.io/coolify/install.sh | bash
# Access dashboard at http://YOUR_IP:8000

Deploy a Next.js App

Connect your GitHub repo in Coolify dashboard
Coolify auto-detects Next.js
Set environment variables
Click Deploy
Push to main → auto-deploy

API for Automation

# List applications
curl 'http://coolify.yourdomain.com/api/v1/applications' \
  -H 'Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_TOKEN'

# Deploy an application
curl -X POST 'http://coolify.yourdomain.com/api/v1/applications/APP_UUID/deploy' \
  -H 'Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_TOKEN'

# Create a database
curl -X POST 'http://coolify.yourdomain.com/api/v1/databases' \
  -H 'Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_TOKEN' \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d '{
    "type": "postgresql",
    "name": "myapp-db",
    "server_uuid": "SERVER_UUID"
  }'

# Get deployment logs
curl 'http://coolify.yourdomain.com/api/v1/applications/APP_UUID/logs' \
  -H 'Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_TOKEN'

Deploy with Docker Compose

# docker-compose.yml — deploy any stack
version: '3.8'
services:
  app:
    build: .
    ports:
      - '3000:3000'
    environment:
      - DATABASE_URL=postgresql://user:pass@db:5432/myapp
    depends_on:
      - db

  db:
    image: postgres:16
    volumes:
      - pgdata:/var/lib/postgresql/data
    environment:
      - POSTGRES_PASSWORD=pass
      - POSTGRES_DB=myapp

volumes:
  pgdata:

One-Click Services

Coolify can deploy with one click:

Databases: PostgreSQL, MySQL, MariaDB, MongoDB, Redis, KeyDB
Apps: Plausible, Umami, Ghost, WordPress, Minio, n8n
Tools: Gitea, Uptime Kuma, Grafana, Prometheus

Cost Comparison

Setup	Monthly Cost
Vercel Pro (3 apps)	$60-120
Heroku (3 apps + DB)	$75-150
Coolify on Hetzner CX22	$5 (VPS) + $0 (Coolify)
Coolify on DigitalOcean	$6 (VPS) + $0 (Coolify)

When to Use Coolify

Side projects — deploy unlimited apps on one VPS
Startups — control costs while growing
Self-hosted SaaS — deploy customer instances
Development — staging environments on the cheap
Data sovereignty — host in your preferred region

Need to deploy scrapers on your own infrastructure? Check out my web scraping actors on Apify — or self-host with Coolify.

Need help with deployment automation? Email me at spinov001@gmail.com.

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