Why Self-Host Gratonite?

Your community deserves better

Every community platform makes the same promise: "We'll take care of everything." And then one day the rules change, the algorithm shifts, or the platform decides your community isn't worth keeping.

Self-hosting means that can never happen. Your server runs on your hardware (or a cheap VPS), under your control. No one can shut you down, throttle your features, or read your messages.

It takes 5 minutes

We're not exaggerating. If you have Docker installed, it's five commands:

git clone github.com/CoodayeA/Gratonite
cd Gratonite/deploy/self-host
cp .env.example .env
nano .env
docker compose up -d

Open your browser, walk through the setup wizard, and you're running your own Gratonite instance. The wizard handles everything: creating your admin account, generating encryption keys, and connecting to the federation network.

No coding required

The setup wizard is designed for people who've never touched a terminal. Point-and-click configuration for everything that matters: your domain, your admin account, federation settings, and relay network connection.

If you can rent a $5/month VPS and paste five commands, you can self-host Gratonite.

You're not alone — federation connects you

Self-hosting doesn't mean isolation. Gratonite's federation protocol connects your instance to every other Gratonite server in the network.

Your users can join servers on other instances. Users from other instances can join yours. Voice calls work across instances. It's one network, many servers — the way the internet was supposed to work.

Behind a home router? No problem

Don't have a public IP or want to deal with port forwarding? The relay network handles it. Your instance connects outbound to a relay, which routes encrypted traffic to and from other instances.

The relay never sees your messages — everything is end-to-end encrypted with AES-256-GCM. All it sees is fixed-size encrypted envelopes.

Alternatively, use a free Cloudflare Tunnel to expose your home server with zero port forwarding and automatic TLS.

What you get

Everything the hosted version has. No feature gating, no premium tiers, no artificial limits:

• Full chat — text channels, threads, DMs, group DMs
• Voice and video — powered by LiveKit (optional, easy to add)
• Federation — connect with the entire Gratonite network
• E2E encryption — for DMs and cross-instance communication
• Customization — themes, cosmetics, the full shop system
• Admin dashboard — full control over your instance, users, and federation

What it costs

The software is free and open source. You pay for hosting:

• Home PC: Free (use Cloudflare Tunnel or the relay network)
• Small VPS: $5-10/month (DigitalOcean, Hetzner, Linode)
• Dedicated server: $20+/month (for larger communities)

Hardware requirements are modest: 1 CPU, 1GB RAM, 10GB storage gets you started.

Get started

Ready to run your own? Head to the self-hosting guide for the full walkthrough.

Or if you want to help the network grow, consider running a relay node — it takes even less resources and helps instances behind NAT communicate.

Your server. Your rules. Your community.