Self-host Jenkins

A long-established automation server for building, testing and deploying software, extended through a large plugin ecosystem and configured with pipelines written as code (Jenkinsfile).

Key facts

What you need

• Any VPS with at least 256 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

Install

Run these commands on your server:

copy# Jenkins LTS — official image, data in a named volume
docker run -d --name jenkins --restart=on-failure -p 8080:8080 -p 50000:50000 \
  -v jenkins_home:/var/jenkins_home jenkins/jenkins:lts-jdk21
# open http://SERVER_IP:8080 — unlock key: docker exec jenkins cat /var/jenkins_home/secrets/initialAdminPassword

More self-hosted tools

CI/CD

Semaphore UI

A web interface for running Ansible playbooks, as well as Terraform/OpenTofu, PowerShell and shell scripts, with projects, inventories, stored credentials, schedules and a run history.

GoVue

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CI/CD

Woodpecker CI

A lightweight CI/CD engine, forked from Drone, that runs pipelines defined in YAML as Docker containers. It has no user accounts of its own: you log in through a connected forge such as GitHub, Gitea, Forgejo or GitLab.

GoVue

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Code hosting

OneDev

A Java forge whose distinguishing trick is code intelligence: language-aware symbol search and navigation at any commit, plus regex code search, all built in rather than bolted on. It bundles a GUI-driven CI/CD engine, package registries and issue boards in one container, and is open core — clustering, audit logging and cross-project search need a paid subscription.

Java

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Office suite

Collabora Online

A LibreOffice-based online office suite for editing text documents, spreadsheets and presentations in the browser with real-time collaboration. It runs as an editing server behind a file platform such as Nextcloud, ownCloud or Seafile rather than as a standalone app.

C++JavaScript

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