DEV Community

Alex Spinov
Alex Spinov

Posted on

Dokku Has a Free Heroku Alternative You Can Run on a $5 VPS

#dokku #deployment #devops #selfhosted

Heroku killed its free tier. Railway, Render, and Fly.io have usage limits. But Dokku gives you your own PaaS on any VPS — for the cost of the server.

What Is Dokku?

Dokku is the smallest PaaS implementation you have ever seen. It is powered by Docker and uses Heroku buildpacks. git push to deploy — just like Heroku, but on YOUR server.

Setup (5 Minutes) 

# On a fresh Ubuntu VPS ($5/month on DigitalOcean/Hetzner)
wget -NP . https://dokku.com/bootstrap.sh
sudo DOKKU_TAG=v0.34.8 bash bootstrap.sh

# Add your SSH key
cat ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub | dokku ssh-keys:add admin

# Set your domain
dokku domains:set-global dokku.yourdomain.com
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

Deploy Any App

Node.js 

# On your server
dokku apps:create my-api

# On your local machine
git remote add dokku dokku@your-server:my-api
git push dokku main
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

Dokku detects the language, builds, and deploys. Done.

Python/Django 

dokku apps:create django-app
dokku config:set django-app SECRET_KEY=your-secret DEBUG=False
git push dokku main
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

Static Sites 

dokku apps:create portfolio
# Just include a static.json or nginx.conf.sigil
git push dokku main
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

Free SSL (Let's Encrypt) 

dokku plugin:install https://github.com/dokku/dokku-letsencrypt.git
dokku letsencrypt:set my-api email you@example.com
dokku letsencrypt:enable my-api
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

Automatic HTTPS. Automatic renewal. Zero cost.

Databases (One Command) 

# PostgreSQL
dokku plugin:install https://github.com/dokku/dokku-postgres.git
dokku postgres:create mydb
dokku postgres:link mydb my-api
# DATABASE_URL is automatically set!

# Redis
dokku plugin:install https://github.com/dokku/dokku-redis.git
dokku redis:create cache
dokku redis:link cache my-api

# MySQL, MongoDB, RabbitMQ, Elasticsearch — all available
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

Zero-Downtime Deploys 

dokku checks:enable my-api
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

Dokku spins up the new container, waits for health checks, then switches traffic. Old container stays up until the new one is confirmed healthy.

What You Get vs Heroku

Feature Heroku (Hobby) Dokku ($5 VPS)
Monthly cost $7/dyno $5 total (unlimited apps)
SSL $7/mo addon Free (Let's Encrypt)
PostgreSQL $9/mo Free (plugin)
Redis $15/mo Free (plugin)
Custom domains Yes Yes
Git push deploy Yes Yes
Total (1 app + DB + Redis) $38/mo $5/mo

Scaling 

# Scale processes
dokku ps:scale my-api web=2 worker=1

# Resource limits
dokku resource:limit my-api --memory 512
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

A $5 VPS comfortably runs 3-5 small apps. A $20 VPS handles 10-15.

Need custom deployment automation or data pipelines? I build developer tools and infrastructure solutions. Email spinov001@gmail.com or explore my tools on Apify.

Top comments (0)