Self-hosting n8n and your automations

Updated 2026-07-29

n8n is an open-source automation tool, an alternative to Zapier or Make, that connects your applications together through visual workflows. Self-hosted, it removes the per-operation task limits and keeps your data — often sensitive, since it flows through your connectors — on your own server. A VPS is the ideal foundation.

Why self-host n8n

Cost: cloud plans bill per execution. On your VPS, you run as many workflows as the machine can take, at a fixed price.
Privacy: your API credentials, customer data and webhooks stay with you, in the European Union, not with a US third party.
Freedom: full access to community nodes and code execution, with no artificial quota.

Which machine

Personal use or a small team: the Eco VPS (2 vCPUs, 4 GB) runs n8n and its PostgreSQL database with ease.
Many or heavy workflows (file processing, AI, large volumes): step up to a Pro VPS for the CPU and memory headroom.
ARM: n8n runs perfectly on ARM64; our ARM VPS offers excellent performance per euro for this kind of workload.

Running it cleanly

The recommended method is Docker Compose: an n8n container, a PostgreSQL container for persistence, and a reverse proxy for HTTPS. Points to watch:

Use PostgreSQL rather than the default SQLite database as soon as usage gets serious.
Set restart: unless-stopped so the stack survives a reboot.
Put n8n behind a reverse proxy with a TLS certificate; the interface and the webhooks must be served over HTTPS.
Set the WEBHOOK_URL variable to your public domain, otherwise external triggers fail.

Security and backups

n8n stores credentials encrypted with a key you must back up separately: lose it, and you lose access to your saved connections. Back up the PostgreSQL database and that encryption key regularly and off-site. Our guide backing up your site with restic or borg applies directly, with our storage plan as an encrypted target.

Location and payment

You pick the EU location at checkout (Germany or Finland, Hetzner infrastructure). Ordering requires no account, payable by card or in cryptocurrency, with no commitment.

To prepare the server, read getting started with a VPS, then pick your machine from the VPS range.