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 Actions deployments, full Docker support, and no serverless limitations.

Problem

The author wanted the simplicity of Vercel’s “push to deploy” workflow but needed to run databases, cronjobs, and long-running processes that serverless platforms don’t support well.

Outcome

DockerHoster enables self-hosted, cost-effective deployment of multiple web projects with automated GitHub push-to-deploy, full Docker ecosystem support, and no serverless limitations.

Workflow

• 1. Deploy a $12/month VPS (e.g., DigitalOcean droplet).
• 2. Install Docker and Docker Compose.
• 3. Install nginx-proxy and configure VIRTUAL_HOST for routing.
• 4. Copy the provided GitHub Actions workflow and docker-compose.yml into each project repository.
• 5. Push code to GitHub; GitHub Actions triggers DockerHoster to build and deploy the container automatically.
• 6. Use Cloudflare for DNS, SSL, DDoS protection, and WAF if desired.

Evidence

I built DockerHoster after getting tired of paying per-project hosting fees.

Source

It’s a one-command setup that lets you host 20+ websites on a single $12/month VPS with automated GitHub deployments.

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The problem: I wanted the simplicity of Vercel’s "push to deploy" workflow but needed to run databases, cronjobs, and long-running processes that serverless platforms don’t support well.

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DockerHoster uses nginx-proxy to automatically route traffic to Docker containers based on VIRTUAL_HOST.

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You just copy a GitHub Actions workflow and docker-compose.yml to any project, and it deploys automatically on push.

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Tested running 20+ sites on a 2GB RAM DigitalOcean droplet.

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