Self-Hosting

Deploy OwlMetry on your own infrastructure with full control over your data.

Why self-host?

• Data sovereignty — all event data, user accounts, and API keys stay on your server. Nothing leaves your infrastructure.
• No vendor lock-in — the entire codebase is open source. You can inspect, modify, and extend it.
• Simple infrastructure — OwlMetry runs on a single VPS with one PostgreSQL database. No Redis, Kafka, or multi-service architectures to manage.
• No usage limits — unlimited apps, events, metrics, and funnels. No throttling, no overage charges.

What self-hosting means

OwlMetry is designed to run on a single VPS. You get the same platform as the hosted version at owlmetry.com, but everything runs on your hardware, your database, your domain.

All event data, user accounts, and API keys stay on your server. There is no telemetry or phone-home behavior.

Architecture

A self-hosted OwlMetry deployment consists of three components behind a reverse proxy:

Cloudflare (SSL termination, DDoS protection)
  |
  v
nginx (reverse proxy)
  |
  +-- owlmetry-api  (Fastify, port 4000)
  |
  +-- owlmetry-web  (Next.js standalone, port 3000)
  |
  +-- PostgreSQL 16  (localhost:5432)

Both the API server and the web dashboard are Node.js processes managed by pm2. PostgreSQL runs locally on the same machine.

Domains

You need three DNS records pointing to your VPS, all on the same IP address:

The api and ingest subdomains both route to the same Fastify server. They are separated at the DNS level for operational clarity -- you can apply different Cloudflare rules, rate limits, or monitoring to each.

Next steps

1. Requirements -- check your server meets the minimum specs.
2. Installation -- clone, build, and initialize the database.
3. Configuration -- set environment variables.
4. Deployment -- configure nginx, pm2, SSL, and firewall.