What can you do with a VPS? 22 self-hosted apps, sized and ready to run.

Each chapter below takes one group, explains what the projects do, and gives you the RAM and disk each one needs, so you can pick a plan with confidence.

1. It never sleeps. It sits in a data centre with backup power and cooling, so your VPN works at 3 a.m. and your bot never misses a message.
2. It has its own public address. Home connections often share addresses or block incoming connections. A VPS can be reached directly by anyone you allow.
3. It has a data-centre connection. Upload speed is often the weak spot of home internet, and serving anything is all upload.
4. You choose where it lives. Put it near your players, near an exchange, or in a country whose laws suit you. We offer 15 countries at one price.

And you get full administrator (root) access. It’s your machine: install anything, configure anything.

How much of the server is really free?

More than you’d think. Here’s our own server, measured, after three days on the internet:

The biggest process on it is the tool that blocks password guessers, which we wrote about in our VPS security guide. Our planner counts 1 GB of RAM for Ubuntu to be safe. In practice a bare server uses far less.

WireGuard: a VPN you own

WireGuard is a modern VPN built into the Linux kernel. Connect your phone and laptop to it and your traffic on hotel and café Wi-Fi travels encrypted to your server, then out to the internet from there. It listens on port 51820/udp by convention and barely needs any resources at all. Our WireGuard tutorial sets it up with ufw on, tested step by step.

What you get: your internet provider and the café Wi-Fi no longer see what you visit, and the sites you visit see your server’s address instead of yours, in the country you picked. On LiteKeep, VPNs are allowed in every country, and you pay in crypto with no ID.

Bitwarden or Vaultwarden: your password manager

Bitwarden’s self-hosted server needs 2 GB of RAM and 12 GB of disk at minimum, 4 GB and 25 GB for comfort. Many people run Vaultwarden instead, which works with the same apps and is much lighter. Either way, it needs HTTPS before browsers will trust it.

Pi-hole or AdGuard Home: ad blocking for every device

A DNS server that refuses to look up ad and tracker domains. Pi-hole needs 512 MB of RAM and 2 GB of free disk. Pair it with WireGuard and your phone blocks ads everywhere, with no app. With ufw on, allow DNS on the VPN interface: ufw allow in on wg0 to any port 53.

A Tor relay: give something back

A middle relay passes encrypted Tor traffic between other relays. It needs at least 512 MB of RAM below 40 Mbit/s and 100 GB of outbound traffic a month. Tor relays, exits included, are allowed on LiteKeep; a middle relay is the easy way to start, because exit relays carry other people’s traffic to the open internet and draw more complaints. For a busy relay, a Traffic Lite with 32 TB a month is the natural home.

Static sites and WordPress

A static site is just files served by Nginx or Caddy: tiny, fast and almost impossible to hack. WordPress needs PHP and a database. A typical site needs 256 MB per PHP process, so a site with four PHP workers wants about 1 GB, plus room for the database. Busy shops need more workers.

Coolify: your own app platform

Coolify gives you a dashboard to deploy apps straight from Git, with HTTPS handled for you, much like a hosted platform but on your server. It needs 2 CPU cores, 2 GB of RAM and 10 GB of disk for itself. Your apps come on top. If you run lots of small side projects, one Lite 6 with Coolify can replace several paid hosting accounts.

Git, analytics and an editor

• Forgejo or Gitea give you private Git hosting with issues and pull requests. Small teams run them on very little.
• Plausible is cookie-free analytics. It needs at least 2 GB of RAM and a CPU with SSE 4.2.
• code-server runs VS Code in your browser. It needs at least 1 GB of RAM and 2 CPU cores.

Want several sites on one server? You can, and chapter 9 shows how they share ports 80 and 443 without stepping on each other. To size the server, use our VPS size picker or the planner below.

n8n: workflows on your own server

n8n connects apps the way Zapier does: “when a form is filled in, add a row and send a message.” Memory grows with the data your workflows handle, so start with 1 GB free for light use and give heavy workflows up to 4 GB.

Bots and scheduled jobs

Telegram and Discord bots, price trackers, scrapers, nightly reports. Most are small scripts that need no open ports at all, because they call out to the service rather than waiting for calls in. That also makes them easy to secure.

Uptime monitoring

Uptime Kuma checks your sites every minute and alerts you when one goes down. It runs on Node.js 20.4 or newer and needs local disk, which every LiteKeep server has. Run it on a different server from the sites it watches, ideally in another of our countries, so it can still tell you when they’re down.

AI agents

An AI agent is a program that takes a goal and works on it: reads email, writes drafts, runs tasks, calls tools. Projects like OpenClaw run the agent on your server and call an AI model online. We offer one-click OpenClaw hosting and templates for other AI apps. The agent itself is light; the thinking happens at the model provider.

OpenClaw needs 1 GB of RAM at minimum and runs well on 2 GB with swap, which is why Lite 2 is enough. One firm rule: keep the agent’s gateway on loopback, and reach it through an SSH tunnel, not the open internet.

Nextcloud: your own file cloud

Files, calendar, contacts and sharing links, synced to your devices. Nextcloud needs about 512 MB per PHP process, so four workers plus a database is about 2.5 GB. Add your files as data, or put them on a Vault.

Immich: photo backup from your phone

The closest self-hosted match to Google Photos. It’s also one of the hungriest projects here: Immich needs at least 6 GB of RAM and 2 CPU cores, 8 GB and 4 cores for comfort. Give it a Lite 8.

Jellyfin: your own films and music

Jellyfin streams media you own to any device. It runs on about 4 GB of RAM with 100 GB of fast disk for the system and cache. Converting video on the fly is heavy work, so keep files in formats your devices can play directly, or run it on a Forge GPU server for transcoding. Streaming sends a lot of data, which is what Traffic Lites are for.

A backup target

The simplest storage project of all: a server that holds encrypted copies of your other servers. Tools like restic send only what changed. It needs almost no memory, just disk, which is why our Vaults pair a small CPU with 700 GB to 3 TB.

Your own mail server

Possible, satisfying, and the hardest project on this page. mailcow, a popular all-in-one suite, needs at least 6 GiB of RAM plus 1 GiB of swap and 20 GiB of disk before any email, and it only runs on full virtualization: every LiteKeep server is KVM.

Memory is the easy part. Sending mail needs outbound port 25, and many hosts block it by default. On LiteKeep, port 25 is open and you can set reverse DNS yourself. Add SPF, DKIM and DMARC records and your mail is ready to go.

Minecraft

A small Minecraft server needs 1 GB at the very least, 2 GB for a small group and 4 GB for the best experience, and very little disk for world saves. Mods and more players push memory up fast. The default port is 25565. Our Minecraft RAM calculator adds it up from measured figures.

Valheim and others

A Valheim dedicated server listens on 2456 to 2457 over UDP. Memory depends on your world and your mods, so start on a Lite 6 and check free -h after a busy evening.

Not sure about traffic? Game servers are usually modest, and every Lite includes 1 TB or more a month. Run a traffic counter for a day, as our bandwidth guide explains, and multiply by 30. And because game servers get attacked, every LiteKeep server has DDoS filtering at the network edge.

A Bitcoin node

Running your own node means your wallet checks transactions against your own copy of the rules instead of trusting someone else’s server. A node needs 2 GB of RAM and an upload of at least 400 kilobits a second, and typically downloads around 20 GB a month.

Disk is the decision. A full node keeps the whole chain, which now takes over 750 GB and keeps growing: that’s a Vault job. A pruned node keeps only recent blocks, cutting disk to around 7 GB, and still verifies everything.

Monero nodes support pruning too, and crypto nodes of every kind are allowed on LiteKeep.

A trading bot

Freqtrade, a popular open-source bot, runs well on 2 GB of RAM, 1 GB of disk and 2 vCPU: a Lite 2. Put it in the country closest to your exchange. It also needs an accurate clock, so keep time sync on.

And yes, you can pay for the server in the same coins. Our crypto payment guide walks through it.

Try ticking Immich next to a few light projects and watch the plan jump. Then try a full Bitcoin node and see the planner switch to a storage plan.

Rule 1: one port, one program

Only one program can listen on a port. Web apps all want 80 and 443, so you put a reverse proxy in front: it takes every visitor and hands each domain to the right app.

Rule 2: Docker can open ports behind your back

Many of these projects ship as Docker containers, and published container ports bypass your firewall rules, including ufw. Publish ports only to 127.0.0.1 and let the reverse proxy face the internet. Our Docker tutorial shows the install, our ufw test and a server-wide fix.

Rule 3: separate what can hurt each other

Keep mail, and anything that strangers can log in to, apart from your private tools. A second small Lite costs little, bills by the hour, and keeps one mistake from reaching everything.

Allowed on LiteKeep

Crypto mining, crypto nodes, Tor relays including exits, proxies and VPNs, torrents and mail servers, within the law, in all 15 countries. Many hosts ban several of these. Our acceptable use policy spells it out in plain words.

Not allowed anywhere

• Spam, phishing, malware and botnets. They poison the IP ranges everyone else depends on, so we shut them down in every country.
• Scanning other people’s networks. Scan only what you own.
• Open relays and resolvers. Open mail relays, open proxies and open DNS servers get found and abused by strangers. Lock them to your own users.
• Illegal content. Hosting offshore doesn’t change what’s illegal. Our offshore hosting guide explains what choosing a country does for you.

Better on a different plan

• Video transcoding and local AI models want a GPU: use a Forge.
• Big media libraries and full nodes want disk: use a Vault.
• Your only copy of anything wants a second home: back it up to a Vault in another country.

A home server is fine if your power, router and upload speed never let you down. A hosted app means paying per app or per seat, on someone else’s rules. A VPS gives you one bill, every app you want, reachable all the time, in the country you pick.

1. 01

   Pick one project

   Start small. WireGuard, a static site or Uptime Kuma are good first projects: light, useful, and quick to see working.

2. 02

   Size the server

   Tick it in the planner above, plus anything you’ll add soon. Hourly billing on our Lites means a test server costs only the hours it exists.

3. 03

   Pick a location

   Near your users or players, or in the country whose laws suit the project. See all 15 locations.

4. 04

   Secure it first

   Before any app: SSH keys, a firewall, automatic updates. Our security guide builds the commands for you.

5. 05

   Install and test

   Install the project, or use one of our one-click templates. Check it works from another device.

6. 06

   Back up and monitor

   Set up a backup to another server and an uptime check. Then add your next project.

Quick answers

Is a VPS worth it for personal use? If you’ll run something every day, such as a VPN, password manager or bot, yes. One Lite 2 can replace several monthly subscriptions.

Can I run several websites on one VPS? Yes. A reverse proxy shares ports 80 and 443 between them; memory is the real limit.

Can I use a VPS as a VPN? Yes. WireGuard needs almost no resources, protects you on public Wi-Fi, and gives you an address in the country you choose.

How much RAM do I need? It depends entirely on the mix. A VPN and a small site fit in 2 GB; photo backup or mail needs 6 GB or more. Use the planner.