Show HN: DockerHoster – Self-hosted alternative to Vercel with auto-deployments

Description and use

DockerHoster lets you host 20+ sites on a single $12/month VPS with automated GitHub deployments, full Docker ecosystem support, and no serverless limitations.

Problem

High per-project hosting fees and serverless limitations (no databases, cronjobs, long-running processes) on platforms like Vercel.

Outcome

DockerHoster enables cost-effective, scalable hosting of multiple sites on a single VPS with automated deployments, full Docker ecosystem access, and no serverless constraints.

Workflow

• 1. Provision a VPS (e.g., DigitalOcean droplet) with at least 2GB RAM.
• 2. Install Docker and Docker Compose on the VPS.
• 3. Deploy DockerHoster by running the provided one-command setup script.
• 4. For each project, add a GitHub Actions workflow and a docker-compose.yml that defines services and sets VIRTUAL_HOST environment variable.
• 5. Push code to GitHub; GitHub Actions triggers DockerHoster to rebuild and redeploy containers automatically.
• 6. Use Cloudflare for DNS and SSL to enable free DDoS protection and WAF.

Evidence

I built DockerHoster after getting tired of paying per-project hosting fees. It’s a one-command setup that lets you host 20+ websites on a single $12/month VPS with automated GitHub deployments.

Source

Works with any language/framework (Next.js, Python, Rails, Go, etc.) – Full Docker ecosystem access (PostgreSQL, MongoDB, Redis, AI vector DBs, etc.) – No serverless limitations (cronjobs, SQLite, file system access all work).

Source