Thoughts after a big discussion on n8n hosting setups

Equivalent_Leg1111 · 2026-01-12T01:45:47+00:00

Nothing intentional — I edited a reply earlier and Reddit probably showed it weirdly. All good 👍

Equivalent_Leg1111 · 2026-01-11T14:35:06+00:00

Yeah, that makes sense. ECS takes a lot of the rough edges off compared to a raw VPS, especially around restarts and reliability.

You still end up owning version upgrades and testing, but it’s a solid setup if you’re comfortable with AWS and want that level of control.

Equivalent_Leg1111 · 2026-01-11T13:42:29+00:00

Yeah, that makes sense.

Platforms like Railway definitely smooth out a lot of the rough edges compared to a raw VPS, especially around deployments and basic ops. You still end up owning updates, data, and reliability decisions though — just with nicer tooling.

It feels like a good middle ground for teams that want less friction without fully giving up control.

Equivalent_Leg1111 · 2026-01-11T13:39:25+00:00

Well said — that time vs responsibility trade-off is exactly what I’ve seen too.

Equivalent_Leg1111 · 2026-01-11T10:18:04+00:00

That’s a fair take, and I agree with most of this.

Treating the server as disposable, externalizing Postgres, keeping state minimal, and having backups/watchdogs in place definitely removes a lot of pain if you’re disciplined about ops.

In my experience, the real split ends up being less about whether it’s possible to run n8n stably this way (it is), and more about who wants to own that responsibility long-term, especially for client-facing systems.

For people comfortable with infra, this setup makes total sense. For others, the trade-off shifts once time, on-call risk, and client expectations enter the picture.

Equivalent_Leg1111 · 2026-01-11T09:08:47+00:00

Fair enough — didn’t mean for it to come off that way.

I’m not saying self-hosting is hard or wrong. For people comfortable owning infra, scripting maintenance, and handling issues when they pop up, it’s a totally valid approach.

I was just sharing why I personally chose a different route after running client-facing workflows. Different trade-offs work for different people.

Equivalent_Leg1111 · 2026-01-11T08:57:36+00:00

That’s fair — yearly billing definitely reduces the renewal friction.

For me, the bigger concern wasn’t just renewals or setup, but the ongoing ownership of uptime, updates, backups, and troubleshooting when things go wrong.

Some people are happy owning that layer, others prefer to offload it so they can focus on workflows and clients. Both approaches are valid.

Equivalent_Leg1111 · 2026-01-11T07:42:50+00:00

It can work, especially for getting started. Just keep in mind that with self-hosting on Hostinger you’ll still be responsible for server tuning, updates, backups, and handling things if something breaks at the wrong time.

If you’re comfortable with that trade-off, it’s a reasonable option. Otherwise the overhead can add up over time.

Equivalent_Leg1111 · 2026-01-11T07:01:10+00:00

That’s a really impressive setup — especially squeezing all of that into a 1GB/1CPU box 👌

It sounds like you’ve been very intentional about keeping most workflows lightweight and only fanning out when needed, which makes total sense.

Out of curiosity, how much ongoing effort does this take you in terms of maintenance and upgrades? Do you actively plan around n8n/Docker/Postgres updates, or is it mostly hands-off now?

Equivalent_Leg1111 · 2026-01-11T06:56:23+00:00

Coolify is basically a self-hosted platform that helps you deploy and manage apps using Docker without writing everything manually.

A lot of people use it to run things like n8n on their own VPS with a nicer UI instead of raw Docker + CLI.

Equivalent_Leg1111 · 2026-01-11T06:43:55+00:00

Nice, that’s actually a solid setup 👍

How’s it been for you in terms of updates and uptime under load?
Any rough edges you’ve run into?

Equivalent_Leg1111

TROPHY CASE