Deploy your applications with Easypanel on a VPS

Easypanel positions itself as a modern, visual alternative to CapRover or Dokku. It relies on Docker and Nixpacks to automatically build your applications from a Git repository, without you having to write a Dockerfile. Its interface, more recent and more ergonomic than most open-source panels, lets you manage applications, databases, certificates and domains in a few clicks. Easypanel natively integrates Traefik as a reverse proxy: each deployed application automatically gets its Let's Encrypt certificate and its routing. It's an excellent compromise between the simplicity of a commercial PaaS and the control of a server you own, particularly well suited to agencies that regularly deploy client projects.

Easypanel bundles Traefik and a Nixpacks builder, which requires a bit more memory than Portainer.

RAM: 1 GB minimum for an installation without active builds, 2 GB recommended for regular use. As soon as you host several applications with their databases, aim for 4 GB: Nixpacks builds temporarily consume a lot of RAM and a 1 GB server risks killing the compilation process mid-way.

CPU: 1 vCPU is sufficient to start, 2 vCPU recommended as soon as you run frequent builds or resource-intensive databases.

Disk: 30 GB SSD minimum. Plan for more if you host large databases or heavy Docker images (Node, Java).

OS: Clean Ubuntu 22.04 LTS or Ubuntu 24.04 LTS with root access. Debian 12 also works. Docker is installed automatically by the Easypanel script — no need to pre-install it.

Network / DNS: configure an A record for the panel domain (panel.mydomain.com) pointing to your VPS IP. A wildcard record *.mydomain.com is strongly recommended to avoid manually adding each application subdomain. Ports 80, 443 and 3000 must be open in your firewall for the initial installation (port 3000 can then be closed once the panel domain is configured).

Easypanel exposes Traefik via two entry points: the Traefik dashboard (disabled by default for security reasons) and the internal routing API that the panel manages automatically. You normally do not need to touch the Traefik configuration directly.

Automatic TLS. For each domain added in the Domains tab of a service, Easypanel configures an ACME Let's Encrypt resolver (HTTP-01 on port 80). The certificate is renewed automatically before expiry. If your domain is behind Cloudflare, make sure the SSL/TLS mode is set to Full (strict) — a "Flexible" mode would cause an infinite redirect loop since Traefik already redirects HTTP to HTTPS.

Advanced configurations. Via the Advanced tab of each service, you can:
- inject custom Traefik labels (rate-limiting, authentication middlewares);
- mount persistent Docker volumes (useful for data in applications that do not use a dedicated database);
- define a Docker healthcheck so that Traefik only routes traffic to healthy replicas.

Internal port. Easypanel detects the exposed port via Nixpacks or the EXPOSE directive of the Dockerfile. If your application listens on a non-standard port, declare it explicitly in the Port field of the service so that Traefik knows where to route requests.

Updating Easypanel. The panel updates via the interface: Settings → General → Update. From the command line, simply re-run the installation script — it detects the existing installation and updates the containers without reconfiguring your environment:

curl -sSL https://get.easypanel.io | sh

Backing up Docker volumes. Easypanel stores its data (configuration, certificates, Traefik state) in Docker volumes. To back up the entire panel state:

# List Easypanel volumes
docker volume ls | grep easypanel

# Back up a volume to a tar archive
docker run --rm -v easypanel_data:/data -v $(pwd):/backup \
  alpine tar czf /backup/easypanel-backup-$(date +%Y%m%d).tar.gz /data

Application database backups. Easypanel offers scheduled backup functionality for PostgreSQL, MySQL/MariaDB and MongoDB, with export to an S3-compatible bucket. Configure it from the Backups tab of each database service: choose the frequency (hourly, daily, weekly) and the access information for your S3 or Backblaze B2 bucket.

Restoring. To restore a backed-up Docker volume:

docker run --rm -v easypanel_data:/data -v $(pwd):/backup \
  alpine tar xzf /backup/easypanel-backup-20261001.tar.gz -C /

Port 80 or 443 already in use. If Traefik does not start on first launch, check that no other service is listening on those ports: ss -tlnp | grep -E ':(80|443)'. A pre-installed nginx or Apache on the VPS blocks startup. Stop the competing service (systemctl stop nginx) then restart the containers.

Docker not installed or version too old. The installation script handles this, but if you run it on a system that already has an old Docker version, you may get compatibility errors. Check the version: docker --version (Docker 24+ recommended). If necessary, uninstall the old version and re-run the script.

DNS not propagated — SSL certificate not found. If Let's Encrypt cannot verify the domain (DNS record not yet propagated, or long TTL), Traefik will show a certificate error. Check propagation from your terminal: dig +short panel.mydomain.com must return your VPS IP. DNS propagation can take a few minutes to several hours depending on the registrar and TTL.

Certificate error after IP change. If you migrate your VPS to a new IP without updating DNS, the ACME challenge fails. Update your A record, wait for propagation, then force certificate renewal from Settings → Certificates → Renew.

Nixpacks build fails out of memory. On a 1 GB RAM VPS, Node.js builds or multi-stage images may fail silently. Add swap to absorb peaks: fallocate -l 2G /swapfile && chmod 600 /swapfile && mkswap /swapfile && swapon /swapfile. Make swap persistent by adding /swapfile none swap sw 0 0 to /etc/fstab.