Self-host Tandoor Recipes

updated Sep 2026prices checked · Jul 2026

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A self-hosted recipe manager and meal planner for power users: import recipes from thousands of sites, plan several meals a day, and turn plans into shopping lists shared across a household.

Key facts

CategoryRecipes

LicenseAGPL-3.0 with Commons Clause

StackPython, Vue

Min RAM1024 MB

Official imageyes

Difficulty

Sourcegithub.com/TandoorRecipes/recipes

Websitetandoor.dev

Our recommendation

Pick Tandoor Recipes when a large or shared recipe collection needs more than a scraper and a calendar: it is a Django (Python) app with a Vue frontend, and the recommended install is Docker Compose with two services — `postgres:16-alpine` and the `vabene1111/recipes` image, which since Tandoor 2 bundles nginx and serves everything on port 80. You get import from thousands of sites that publish ld+json or microdata, importers from other recipe managers (Mealie, Paprika, Nextcloud and more), full-text search with trigram similarity, meal plans with several meals a day, shopping lists from plans or recipes, and households and spaces for sharing. Upstream publishes no RAM figure for Docker; our 1 GB floor is an estimate. The code is AGPL-3.0 with a Commons Clause selling restriction. If you want one container on SQLite instead, Mealie is the catalog's other recipe manager.

What you need

Any VPS with at least 1024 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

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DigitalOceanalso works on

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Install

Run these commands on your server:

# Tandoor Recipes — upstream's "plain" compose (PostgreSQL 16 + the Tandoor image with its built-in nginx) and .env template
mkdir tandoor && cd tandoor
wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/TandoorRecipes/recipes/develop/docs/install/docker/plain/docker-compose.yml
wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/TandoorRecipes/recipes/develop/.env.template -O .env
# edit .env — required: SECRET_KEY (upstream: base64 /dev/urandom | head -c50), POSTGRES_PASSWORD, ALLOWED_HOSTS=your.domain
docker compose up -d
# →  http://SERVER_IP (port 80) — wait 2–3 minutes for first-start migrations; the first visit opens /setup to create the admin

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What you take on

Tandoor's docs are candid about what a Docker install leaves to you:

non-negotiableBefore the first start, the .env downloaded from .env.template needs SECRET_KEY (upstream suggests base64 /dev/urandom | head -c50), ALLOWED_HOSTS and POSTGRES_PASSWORD. The first start runs database migrations — upstream says to wait at least 2–3 minutes — and while no user exists the first visit redirects to /setup to create the admin. Local signup is off by default (ENABLE_SIGNUP=0), but social login can still create accounts unless SOCIALACCOUNT_AUTO_SIGNUP=0 is set.

non-negotiableThere is no built-in backup: upstream says "There is currently no 'good' way of backing up your data implemented in the application itself." Dump PostgreSQL with pg_dumpall and copy the mediafiles directory yourself. Copying the raw postgresql folder only restores on the same PostgreSQL version.

non-negotiableUpdates are docker compose down, docker compose pull, docker compose up -d after a backup and a read of the release notes. There is "no mechanism to downgrade the database", so a bad upgrade means restoring a dump; the default latest tag can be pinned to an X.Y.Z tag. Moving to a newer PostgreSQL major is a manual dump and restore.

non-negotiableThe official plain compose publishes port 80, so anything else on the host's port 80 blocks it; behind a reverse proxy, pass Host and X-Forwarded-Proto. Tandoor 2 no longer builds images for arm/v7, and upstream says the app "is not meant to be run as a public page."

non-negotiableThe AGPL-3.0 licence carries the Commons Clause, which withholds the right to sell the software, including paid hosting or support whose value derives from it. Self-hosting for yourself, a family or a team is unaffected. AI features (import from images, PDFs or text; step sorting; nutrition extraction) are enabled per space by default but need an AI provider you configure through LiteLLM, with a per-space spending cap.

non-negotiableThe 1 GB floor is our estimate for the app container (gunicorn defaults to 3 workers) plus PostgreSQL. Upstream's only memory figure, at least 2048 MB, is for the manual install's yarn build step, which the Docker image skips.