StackRates

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Best hosting for a Docker / self-hosted stack in 2026

Some prices quoted in this guide are out of date. It is being rebuilt on our price index; for current prices use the comparison pages, which show when each price was checked.

The self-hosted revival is real: Nextcloud instead of Dropbox, Vaultwarden instead of 1Password, Immich instead of Google Photos, Home Assistant, Ghost, Umami, PhotoPrism, Overseerr, all of it. Almost every one runs as a docker-compose.yml on a plain Linux VPS. The right host for this kind of stack is dictated by three things: RAM, storage per dollar, and bandwidth allowance.

Prices as of 2026-09-22.

What a self-hosted Docker stack actually needs

  • RAM: 4-8 GB comfortable. Each container idle: 50-200 MB. A typical self-hosted stack (Nextcloud + Vaultwarden + Immich + Postgres + Redis + Caddy + Umami) sits at ~2-3 GB. 8 GB gives headroom for photo processing and future additions.
  • Storage: 100 GB minimum, 300+ GB comfortable. Photos, files and backups add up. Immich alone can eat 100 GB in a year.
  • vCPU: 4 comfortable. Individual containers are light; photo/video processing is CPU-bursty.
  • Bandwidth: 10-20 TB. Backups and photo/video access consume real bandwidth.
  • Static IP. All included at every provider we track.

Recommended picks

Small self-hosted homelab-in-the-cloud ($5-10/mo)

Hetzner CX32 at $7.60/mo — 4 vCPU, 8 GB RAM, 80 GB NVMe, 20 TB transfer.

Everything a modest self-hosted stack needs. Install Docker + docker-compose, wire up your compose.yml, done. 80 GB storage constrains photo hoarders; add block storage at €0.052/GB/mo if needed.

Storage-heavy self-hosted ($8-12/mo)

Contabo Cloud VPS 4 at $7.79/mo — 4 vCPU, 8 GB RAM, 100 GB NVMe.

Contabo Cloud VPS 6 at $10.62/mo — 6 vCPU, 12 GB RAM, 200 GB NVMe. Ideal for Immich, Nextcloud, and PhotoPrism at real photo library scale.

Bandwidth-heavy self-hosted ($5-10/mo)

Hetzner CX22 at $4.60/mo — 20 TB transfer at every plan. Best-in-class if you sync large files or share photo albums.

Massive self-hosted ($20-40/mo)

Contabo Cloud VPS 8 at $19.82/mo — 8 vCPU, 24 GB RAM, 300 GB NVMe.

Or Hetzner CCX / Auction dedicated for real ops consistency.

The base docker-compose pattern

Every self-hosted stack starts with a reverse proxy (Caddy or Traefik) handling SSL and routing:

```yaml

services:

caddy:

image: caddy:latest

restart: unless-stopped

ports:

  • "80:80"
  • "443:443"

volumes:

  • ./Caddyfile:/etc/caddy/Caddyfile
  • caddy_data:/data
  • caddy_config:/config

nextcloud:

image: nextcloud:latest

restart: unless-stopped

volumes:

  • nextcloud_data:/var/www/html

environment:

  • MYSQL_HOST=db

depends_on:

  • db

db:

image: mariadb:latest

restart: unless-stopped

volumes:

  • db_data:/var/lib/mysql

volumes:

caddy_data:

caddy_config:

nextcloud_data:

db_data:

```

Caddy handles Let's Encrypt automatically. docker-compose up -d. Done.

Backups for self-hosted

Non-negotiable:

  • restic or Borg encrypted backups to Backblaze B2 ($6/TB-month).
  • Nightly.
  • Includes the Docker volumes and any bind mounts with real data.

Restic to B2 setup:

```bash

apt install restic

restic -r b2:my-selfhost-bucket:/ init

Nightly backup

0 3 * restic -r b2:my-selfhost-bucket:/ backup /var/lib/docker/volumes /home/user/data

```

Common self-hosted apps and their resource needs

App RAM Notes
Nextcloud 500 MB Reasonable at 500 MB, better at 1 GB
Vaultwarden 50 MB Extremely light
Immich 500 MB - 1.5 GB Machine learning for face recognition uses CPU heavily
Home Assistant 200 MB Depends on integrations
GitLab 4+ GB Heavy. Small teams should use Forgejo/Gitea (~200 MB)
Ghost 200 MB
Umami 100 MB
PhotoPrism 500 MB ML processing is CPU-bursty
Overseerr 100 MB
Uptime Kuma 150 MB

Stack all of these on Hetzner CX32 (8 GB) and you're at ~4 GB steady state. Comfortable.

Which one you should actually pick

  • Standard self-hosted stack, moderate storage → Hetzner CX32 at $7.60/mo.
  • Photo / file-hoarding scale → Contabo Cloud VPS 6 at $10.62/mo (200 GB) or CVS 8 at $19.82 (300 GB).
  • Bandwidth-heavy (external file sharing, video) → Hetzner CX32 for the 20 TB.
  • Compute-heavy (ML processing, GitLab, media transcoding) → Hetzner CPX31 at $15.60/mo (AMD, more consistent CPU) or Vultr HF.

Related guides

Prices as of 2026-09-22.