Self-Hosting

Emberly's source is public under the Elastic License 2.0. You can run a complete instance on your own server, with your own storage, domain and users, for free.

Quick Start

With Docker installed, you only need two files. PostgreSQL and Redis come with them:

mkdir emberly && cd emberly
curl -fsSLo compose.yaml https://raw.githubusercontent.com/EmberlyOSS/Emberly/master/compose.yaml
curl -fsSLo .env https://raw.githubusercontent.com/EmberlyOSS/Emberly/master/.env.example
# set AUTH_SECRET (openssl rand -base64 32) and APP_URL in .env
docker compose up -d

Open http://localhost:3000 and the Setup Wizard walks you through creating the admin account. Database migrations run automatically when the container starts.

For other ways to deploy, see Deploying.

What You Need

Configuration Model

Only a few things must be set before the first start: APP_URL, AUTH_SECRET, DATABASE_URL and REDIS_URL. Everything else, including email, storage and integrations, can be set either as environment variables or later in Admin → Settings. When both are set, environment variables win for storage, and the Admin Panel value wins for email.

See Environment Variables for the full list.

Repository Layout

Emberly is a monorepo. The app you deploy lives in apps/dashboard; the other apps are optional.