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Self-host Drupal

updated Sep 2026prices checked · Jul 2026
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A PHP content management framework for structured, multilingual websites, extended with contributed modules and themes.

Key facts

LicenseGPL-2.0-or-later
StackPHP, Symfony
Min RAM512 MB
Official imageyes
Difficulty

What you need

  • Any VPS with at least 512 MB of RAM
  • A domain you control — most self-hosted setups need HTTPS in front of them
  • Under an hour if you've used Docker before
Where to host itaffiliate disclosure
Hetzner Cloudrun it on
From $23.59/mo · 2 vCPU / 4 GB / 80 GB · EU + US
Get Hetzner Cloud (opens in new tab)
Kamaterafree trial
From $4/mo · 1 vCPU / 1 GB / 20 GB · US + EU + Asia
Start free on Kamatera → (opens in new tab)
DigitalOceanalso works on
From $6/mo · 1 vCPU / 1 GB / 25 GB · US + EU + Asia
Deploy on DigitalOcean → (opens in new tab)

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Install

Run these commands on your server:

# Drupal 11 — the Docker Official Image with PostgreSQL, adapted from its Docker Hub compose example
mkdir -p drupal && cd drupal
echo "DB_PASS=$(openssl rand -hex 16)" > .env
cat > docker-compose.yml <<'EOF'
services:
  drupal:
    image: drupal:11-apache
    restart: always
    ports: ["8080:80"]
    depends_on: [postgres]
    volumes:
      - modules:/var/www/html/modules
      - profiles:/var/www/html/profiles
      - themes:/var/www/html/themes
      - sites:/var/www/html/sites
  postgres:
    image: postgres:16
    restart: always
    environment:
      POSTGRES_DB: drupal
      POSTGRES_USER: drupal
      POSTGRES_PASSWORD: ${DB_PASS}
    volumes: ["db:/var/lib/postgresql/data"]
volumes:
  modules:
  profiles:
  themes:
  sites:
  db:
EOF
docker compose up -d   #  →  http://SERVER_IP:8080
# the web installer asks for the database: PostgreSQL, name/user drupal, password = DB_PASS in .env, host (Advanced options) postgres

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