Dokku on Mitja Martini

From 8 Lines with Dokku to 200 with Kubernetes – Why I'm Still Switching

Tue, 13 Jan 2026 18:21:46 +0200

So far, my web apps run on a Dokku server. I haven’t tried Vercel or Fly because I didn’t want to deal with complex pricing models that incur more costs with every additional project.

Dokku works like Heroku:

dokku apps:create myapp
dokku postgres:create myapp-db
dokku postgres:link myapp-db myapp
dokku config:set myapp APP_SECRET="$(openssl rand -base64 48)"
dokku git:from-image myapp myregistry.example.com/image:tag
dokku domains:set myapp myapp.mitjas.com
dokku ports:set myapp http:80:8000 https:443:8000
dokku letsencrypt:enable myapp

It doesn’t get any simpler. After just 8 lines I have

an app on the server,
a PostgreSQL DB with a user and password,
the app linked to Postgres,
a secret configured,
the app deployed from a Docker image,
a reverse proxy configured to forward HTTP and HTTPS to the app’s container, and
TLS with certificates signed by Let’s Encrypt (including automatic renewal).

With Kubernetes I need almost 200 lines of YAML for this. Why do I still want to switch to Kubernetes?

Dokku is great for small projects that can make do with the Dokku plugins and run on a single server. But I believe Kubernetes is a better fit for me in the long run.

Kubernetes manifests tell me (and LLMs) what’s running on the cluster, and I can continuously develop and improve them. Dokku, in contrast, feels like “fire, forget, and start from scratch.” Other advantages of Kubernetes like better scalability, more choice, and security are nice, too, but for me the most important advantage right now is:

Kubernetes is well-suited for Vibe Coding.

That’s my assumption, anyway. Let’s see how it goes.

Deploy a Static Site on Dokku

Thu, 03 Oct 2024 00:00:00 +0000

This article describes how to deploy a static site on Dokku, including activating Let’s encrypt signed certificates for the domain.

Configure DNS
#

A @ 7200 $DOKKU_SERVER_IPv4
A * 7200 $DOKKU_SERVER_IPv4
CNAME www 7200 $APP_DOMAIN
AAAA @ 7200 $DOKKU_SERVER_IPv6
AAAA * 7200 $DOKKU_SERVER_IPv6

Create a git repository
#

Create a folder and turn it into a git repository:

mkdir static-dokku
cd static-dokku
git init .

Add an index.html file with the desired content:

echo "hi" > index.html

Create an empty .static file. This tells Dokku that the repository contains a static site. Dokku then uses the Nginx builder to serve it.

touch .static

Commit the changes to git:

git add .
git commit -m "initial commit"

Create an app on the Dokku host and git push to deploy the app
#

Use these commands to create, configure, and deploy the site:

export DOKKU_HOST=<your dokku server>
export APP_DOMAIN=<your app domain>
export APP_NAME=<your app name>
ssh dokku@$DOKKU_HOST apps:create $APP_NAME
git remote add dokku dokku@$DOKKU_HOST:$APP_NAME
git push dokku main
ssh dokku@$DOKKU_HOST domains:add $APP_NAME $APP_DOMAIN
ssh dokku@$DOKKU_HOST letsencrypt:enable $APP_NAME

That’s it. The site is now live at your app domain.

Deploy updates
#

Updates can be deployed by checking them into git and running this command:

git push dokku main

Serving from sub directory
#

Serving files from a subdirectory (eg. public) is possible by setting the NGINX_ROOT environment variable of the app on the Dokku host:

ssh dokku@$DOKKU_HOST config:set $APP_NAME NGINX_ROOT=/app/www/public

Building the site during deployment
#

If you want to build the site during deployment, you can use multiple buildpacks, for example by adding a .buildpacks file to the root directory of the repository.

This way, you can use the first buildpack for building and the second fro serving.

Another, even more flexible option is to use Dockerfile deployments with multi-stage builds.

Dokku SSH Alias

Thu, 03 Oct 2024 00:00:00 +0000

A quick tip to make working a bit easier.

Deploying a SaaS Pegasus Based Django App on Dokku

Sun, 22 Sep 2024 00:00:00 +0000

In this post I’ll share the steps I did to deploy a SaaS Pegasus bootstrapped Django app (Scriv from the SaaS Pegasus marketplace to be precise) with Celery, Redis and Postgres on a Dokku host. There were some hickups along the way, but I believe, when you go step-by-step, it is quite straightforward.

Dokku on Mitja Martini

From 8 Lines with Dokku to 200 with Kubernetes – Why I'm Still Switching

Deploy a Static Site on Dokku

Configure DNS #

Create a git repository #

Create an app on the Dokku host and git push to deploy the app #

Deploy updates #

Serving from sub directory #

Building the site during deployment #