Self-hosted (Coolify)

Coolify is an open-source, self-hostable PaaS — think Heroku on your own VPS. Launchy deploys to it cleanly with Postgres + Redis managed by Coolify, automatic TLS, and a scheduled-task runner for the crons.

This guide assumes you already have Coolify installed on a VPS. If not, follow Coolify's install guide first — one command on a fresh Ubuntu host.

1. Connect your private repo to Coolify

You'll be deploying from the private launchy-customers/launchy-template repo. Coolify needs GitHub access.

1. Coolify dashboard → Sources → + Add → GitHub App
2. Install the Coolify GitHub App on your account
3. Grant access to the launchy-template repo

2. Provision Postgres and Redis via Coolify

Create these before the app — the app needs their connection strings.

Postgres

1. Coolify → your server → + New Resource → Database → PostgreSQL 16
2. Name: launchy-postgres
3. Note the credentials (user, password, database name) Coolify generates
4. Start the database

Coolify exposes the DB on an internal network. The connection string will look like:

postgresql://<user>:<pass>@launchy-postgres:5432/<db>

Redis

1. + New Resource → Database → Redis 7
2. Name: launchy-redis
3. Set a password
4. Start

Internal host: launchy-redis, port 6379.

3. Create the Launchy application

1. + New Resource → Application
2. Source: pick the GitHub App you connected
3. Repository: launchy-customers/launchy-template
4. Branch: main
5. Build pack: Nixpacks (auto-detects Next.js + Bun) OR Dockerfile if you prefer to bundle one
6. Port: 3000
7. Click Deploy (it'll fail on first try — that's expected, we still need env vars)

4. Configure environment variables

In the application view → Environment Variables tab, paste (fill in real values):

DATABASE_URL=postgresql://<user>:<pass>@launchy-postgres:5432/<db>
BETTER_AUTH_SECRET=<openssl rand -base64 32>
BETTER_AUTH_URL=https://your-domain.com

REDIS_HOST=launchy-redis
REDIS_PORT=6379
REDIS_PASSWORD=<your redis password>
REDIS_DB=0

CRON_SECRET=<openssl rand -base64 32>

Add other integrations as needed — Stripe, Plunk, R2, Turnstile, Discord, OAuth. See Environment Variables for the full reference.

Click Save.

5. Attach the domain

1. Coolify app → Domains tab → add your-domain.com
2. Point your DNS A record to the VPS IP
3. Coolify auto-issues a Let's Encrypt cert within a minute
4. Update BETTER_AUTH_URL to match the final https://your-domain.com if you haven't yet

6. First deploy

1. Coolify app → Deploy button
2. Watch the live logs — build takes 2-5 minutes depending on VPS
3. On success: visit https://your-domain.com

The site will 500 on first visit because the database schema isn't pushed yet. Fix next.

7. Push the database schema

You need to run bun db:push once against the production database. Use Coolify's built-in terminal:

1. Coolify → your application resource (Launchy, not the Postgres resource) → Terminal tab
2. Run:

   bun run db:push

The command applies the Drizzle schema using your DATABASE_URL env var (already set in step 4).

If you prefer to run from your laptop instead: expose the Postgres port publicly in the database resource, then:

DATABASE_URL="postgresql://...public-endpoint..." bun run db:push

Either way, reload the site — it loads properly.

8. Create the first admin

Sign up at /sign-up on your live site, verify your email, then use Coolify's database terminal:

1. Coolify → launchy-postgres → Terminal tab
2. psql -U <user> -d <db>
3. UPDATE "user" SET role = 'admin' WHERE email = '[email protected]';

Refresh — the /admin link appears.

9. Configure crons via Coolify Scheduled Tasks

Coolify has a built-in cron runner on each application. Two tasks to add:

1. Coolify app → Scheduled Tasks tab → + Add
2. Task 1: weekly-batch
   • Name: Weekly batch
   • Frequency: 0 6 * * 1 (Monday 06:00 UTC — adjust to match your launch_day + launch_hour_utc settings)
   • Command: curl -sS -X POST -H "Authorization: Bearer $CRON_SECRET" http://localhost:3000/api/cron/weekly-batch
3. Task 2: cleanup-highlights
   • Name: Cleanup highlights
   • Frequency: 0 * * * * (every hour)
   • Command: curl -sS -X POST -H "Authorization: Bearer $CRON_SECRET" http://localhost:3000/api/cron/cleanup-highlights

Coolify injects environment variables into the scheduled task context, so $CRON_SECRET resolves.

Save each task. The status badge shows when they last ran and if they succeeded.

10. Post-deploy checklist

• Homepage loads without errors
• Sign-up → email verification works (if Plunk is configured — otherwise check server logs for the link)
• /admin accessible after SQL promote
• /admin/settings saves persist across page reload
• Trigger the weekly cron manually from Scheduled Tasks → Run Now; check response logs
• Upload a thumbnail from /submit; verify R2 (or Coolify's volume fallback) serves it back
• If using Stripe: fire a test webhook via Stripe CLI pointing at https://your-domain.com/api/stripe/webhook

Updates

When you git push to main, Coolify redeploys automatically (if auto-deploy is on). Otherwise:

1. Coolify app → Deploy

Schema changes require running bun db:push again in the terminal after deploy.

Backups

Postgres

Coolify has built-in database backups on the Postgres resource:

1. launchy-postgres → Backups tab
2. Enable scheduled backups (e.g., daily)
3. Coolify stores them locally on the VPS; push to S3 for off-site:
   • Backups → S3 — configure bucket + credentials

R2

If you're using Cloudflare R2 for uploads, enable versioning in R2 bucket settings. R2 keeps overwrites for 30 days by default.

Monitoring

Coolify shows:

• Deployment logs per resource
• Live logs (stdout tail) on the app view
• Resource usage (CPU, memory, disk)

For external uptime: add an uptimerobot.com monitor hitting https://your-domain.com.

Resource sizing

A $5-$10/month VPS (1-2 GB RAM) comfortably runs Launchy + Postgres + Redis + Coolify overhead for any new directory. Scale up when you hit 100k monthly visitors.

Common issues

App container keeps restarting — Check Logs. Usually a missing required env var (the app throws at startup if validation fails).

DATABASE_URL connection refused — launchy-postgres host isn't resolving. Coolify internal DNS requires both resources to be on the same Coolify server. Cross-server connections need public ports or a Coolify network bridge.

Scheduled tasks never fire — Verify the task is enabled (toggle on) and the frequency is valid cron syntax. Coolify shows the next-run time — if it's "never", the cron string is invalid.

"TLS handshake failed" — DNS A record not propagated yet. Wait 5-60 min after pointing DNS. Retry the domain issuance from the Domains tab.

Uploads vanish after redeploy — The app container is ephemeral. Either use Cloudflare R2 (recommended) or add a Coolify Persistent Storage volume mounted to /app/public/uploads/.