Introducing SimpleDeploy

We have been quietly building SimpleDeploy: a single Go binary that runs Docker Compose apps on a VPS the way you actually want them to run in production.

The problem

You write a docker-compose.yml, scp it to a VPS, run docker compose up -d, then start gluing on the missing pieces:

• nginx or Caddy for TLS.
• certbot or some script for renewals.
• A cron for pg_dump and aws s3 cp.
• A second cron for log rotation.
• Some monitoring (Prometheus? Netdata?) and an alert webhook.
• A dashboard for the team.
• A way to do this from your laptop.

It works, but every step is its own decision. Now repeat for every project.

What SimpleDeploy gives you

One binary that ships all of the above as defaults you can override:

• Docker Compose deploys with safety: every change is versioned, every deploy is auditable, every app can roll back.
• Automatic HTTPS via embedded Caddy. Let’s Encrypt out of the box. Custom certs supported.
• Built-in backups for Postgres, MySQL, MongoDB, Redis, SQLite, and raw volumes. Local or S3 targets. Retention and scheduling per app.
• Alerts with rules like “CPU above 80% for 5 minutes” and webhook delivery to Slack, Discord, PagerDuty.
• Metrics and request stats with tiered rollups so the database stays small forever.
• Multi-user RBAC with per-app access. API keys for CI.
• Remote CLI with kubectl-style contexts. Deploy from your laptop or a GitHub Actions job.
• A dashboard for everything above.

All of it ships in one process. About 60 MB resident for a small fleet. SQLite for state. No external dependencies beyond Docker.

Who it is for

• Solo developers who want production-quality deployments without spending Saturdays on YAML.
• Small teams running a handful of services on one or two VPSes.
• Agencies hosting client apps cheaply.
• Anyone who looked at Kubernetes for a side project and thought “no thanks”.

If you need multi-host orchestration, GPU scheduling, or an autoscaler, you want something else. SimpleDeploy is for the long tail of “this app needs to run reliably on a $20 VPS”.

What’s in the 1.0 box

• CLI + API server. simpledeploy serve runs the daemon; the CLI talks to it locally or remotely with context switching (simpledeploy context).
• Reconciler. Drop a compose.yml in the apps directory and SimpleDeploy applies it. A directory watcher with debounce handles edits.
• Embedded Caddy. Programmatic config (no Caddyfile), with custom modules for per-domain rate limiting and request metrics.
• SQLite + WAL store. Apps, deploys, users, API keys, app access, metrics, request stats, alerts, webhooks, backups, all in one local file.
• Auth. Passwords (bcrypt), JWT sessions, API keys with scopes, per-app access middleware, login rate limiting.
• Metrics. System and container stats collector, buffered batch writer, tiered rollup and pruning, query API.
• Request stats. Caddy module records every request; tiered rollup powers the dashboard charts.
• Backups. Strategies and targets with a scheduler, configs and run history in the store, CLI commands.
• Alerts. Rule evaluator, webhook dispatch with built-in templates, history.
• Svelte dashboard. Embedded in the Go binary. Login, app list, app detail with charts and live logs, deploy/remove flows, backups page, alerts page, user management.
• Log streaming. Process stdout/stderr through a ring buffer, exposed live over WebSocket and the CLI.

1.0.0 also shipped two same-day patch releases (1.1.0, 1.2.0) tightening the goreleaser pipeline so Linux ARM64 and macOS binaries publish cleanly. 1.2.0 is the recommended 1.x baseline until 1.3.0.

Try it

Five minutes from zero to a HTTPS-served app:

brew install vazra/tap/simpledeploy        # or apt, or curl
simpledeploy init --config /etc/simpledeploy/config.yaml
sudo systemctl enable --now simpledeploy
simpledeploy users create --username admin --role super_admin
# drop a docker-compose.yml with simpledeploy.endpoints.0.domain label
simpledeploy apply -f docker-compose.yml --name myapp

The full walk-through is in the quickstart.

What’s next

• A growing library of backup strategies and target backends.
• Multi-host federation for unified visibility across instances.
• SSO via OIDC.
• A community marketplace of compose templates.

The full direction is on the roadmap. The repo is at github.com/vazra/simpledeploy. Issues and discussions are open.

If you build something on SimpleDeploy, tell us. We will list it on the showcase.