Docker

Introduction to Dokploy: Manage Docker Apps on Your Terms

In previous articles, we explored powerful SaaS deployment platforms like Vercel and Netlify, which offer simplicity and speed by letting a third party manage your infrastructure. Now it’s time to dive into the world of self-hosted solutions with Dokploy. Dokploy is more than just a control panel—it’s your personal “Heroku” that you install on your own server. It’s designed to simplify deploying and managing Docker containers while giving you full control over your environment, without subscription fees for every little thing.

Introduction: Where to deploy your web application?

Modern web developers face a huge variety of tools and platforms for deploying their projects. From simple static sites to complex full-fledged web applications and APIs — every solution requires an optimal environment for deployment. In recent years, two approaches have gained special popularity: SaaS platforms (Software as a Service), offering maximum convenience and automation, and self-hosted solutions, providing full control over the infrastructure.

In the world of self-hosted solutions for application management, Dokploy is a modern and powerful platform designed to significantly simplify the deployment and management of Docker containers on your own server. Forget about the complexities of manually configuring Docker Compose, Nginx, or Traefik—Dokploy offers an intuitive web interface that makes this process accessible even to those just starting their journey into containerization. It’s the perfect solution for developers and teams seeking full control over their infrastructure without unnecessary hassle.

n8n + Appwrite: An Open-Source Firebase Alternative for Self-Hosting

We’ve already explored Supabase and Firebase — now it’s time to look at Appwrite, a powerful and fully open-source BaaS platform designed for self-hosting and complete data control.

If you want to build a backend on your own infrastructure, Appwrite can be the perfect partner in combination with n8n.

What Is Appwrite?

Appwrite is a full-featured Backend as a Service (BaaS) platform with open-source code. It provides REST APIs for most features a modern application needs:

Introduction to Plesk

Plesk is another global leader in web hosting control panels, often competing with cPanel for the top spot. What makes Plesk stand out is its modularity, flexibility, and focus not only on traditional hosting but also on web developers, agencies, and DevOps teams. Plesk supports a wide range of operating systems, including both Linux and Windows Server, making it an extremely versatile solution. Like cPanel, Plesk is a commercial product with various licenses depending on needs.

In this guide, I’ll show you how to easily install n8n, a powerful workflow automation tool, on your server with FastPanel using Docker Compose. FastPanel is great for managing web servers, and Docker Compose simplifies the deployment of complex applications like n8n with its dependencies (PostgreSQL and Redis).

What You’ll Need

• Your server with FastPanel installed.
• A domain or subdomain you’ll use to access n8n (e.g., n8n.yourdomain.com).
• Basic knowledge of SSH and command line.

Step 1: Prepare the Server

Connect to your server via SSH and create a directory:

Excellent work, thank you! Mikhail is a professional in his field, I recommend him!

Reply: Thank you for the review! Glad to help!

Part 2: n8n: Cloud vs Self-Hosted Solutions – Which to Choose?

After discovering the capabilities of n8n, a logical question arises: “How do I start using it?” n8n offers two main deployment approaches, each with its pros and cons: Cloud service (n8n Cloud) and Self-Hosted deployment. The choice depends on your needs, technical skills, and security requirements.

n8n Cloud: Simplicity and Convenience

n8n Cloud is the official service by the developers of n8n. Essentially, it’s “n8n as a service,” where all infrastructure and maintenance are handled by the n8n Inc. team.

Hi friends! Today, we’re diving into the world of automation and deploying n8n — a powerful workflow automation tool. We’ll install it in Docker, and use HAProxy as a reliable reverse proxy to expose it to the internet.

This guide is created especially for beginners. We’ll go step by step, explaining every command so you not only do it, but also understand how everything works.

Why do we even need HAProxy?

You could just expose n8n’s ports to the internet, right? Yes, but that’s unsafe and inconvenient. HAProxy acts as both a guard and a dispatcher:

Sometimes it becomes necessary to route all outgoing traffic from a specific container through a proxy server. This can be useful for ensuring anonymity, bypassing geo-restrictions, or for testing network configurations. In this article, we’ll look at how to set up such a system using the tun2socks utility and iptables rules, as well as how to manage this process with systemd.

What is tun2socks?

tun2socks is a powerful tool that allows you to redirect network traffic intended for a TUN device through a SOCKS proxy. It creates a virtual network interface (TUN device), and all traffic flowing through it is encapsulated into a SOCKS connection. This is especially convenient when direct application-level proxying is impossible or undesirable.