Hetzner

I use Hetzner for hosting. Their CAX21 ARM server (4 vCPUs, 8GB RAM, 80GB NVMe) runs €6.49/month—far cheaper than AWS or DigitalOcean. Server setup and Coolify installation were straightforward.

The web interface handles provisioning, daily backups, and monitoring. Scaling is fast—I doubled my storage and RAM in minutes for an extra $3/month. DDoS protection and firewall management come included.

Coolify

Coolify is a self-hostable Heroku/Vercel alternative. I use it to deploy from GitHub, manage Docker containers, and spin up databases. It’s a thin wrapper around Docker and Traefik with a UI—sometimes opaque, and wiring apps through Cloudflare has been painful—but it works.

Networking

Traefik: Coolify’s default proxy. Handles SSL via Let’s Encrypt and routes traffic.

Cloudflare: DNS, DDoS protection, caching. Cloudflare tunnels let me expose services without a public IP (setup guide).

Monitoring

Uptime Kuma: Lightweight uptime monitoring with alerts.

Glance: Mobile-friendly dashboard for RSS, weather, and container status.

Duplicati: Backups to cloud services, WEBDAV, and local storage.

Dozzle: Container logs and resource usage.

ntfy: Push notifications when services go down.

Beszel: Server monitoring with alerts for CPU/memory spikes. Combined with Dozzle, debugging is quick.

The stack

Code in GitHub → Coolify pulls and deploys containers → Traefik routes traffic with auto-SSL → Uptime Kuma and Glance monitor everything.

Apps

Audiobookshelf: My ebook/audiobook library. I set this up after learning Amazon was removing Kindle download functionality. Good web reader and Android app.

Immich: Self-hosted Google Photos alternative with facial recognition. Still in progress—TB+ of photos means I need a NAS before this makes financial sense.

Gramps Web: A family tree app I set up after visiting ancestry in Uzbekistan. Multi-user with editor/guest roles, hot and cold backups.

Vikunja: Simple todo app. Not as polished as commercial options, but I own my data.