Honest breakdown

Why Not Just Deploy Your App Yourself?

You can. It is totally doable. If your app came from Lovable, Bolt, Base44, v0, Replit, or Cursor, here is what it actually takes, in hours, not in theory. Then decide if your time is worth more than $99.

What it really takes

1. 01

   Set up a VPS

   Sign up, create a droplet, lock down SSH keys, create a deploy user with proper permissions.

2. 02

   Point the domain

   Buy DNS, add an A record, wait for propagation, verify it resolves before touching the app.

3. 03

   Install the stack

   Node, Python, or whatever your builder generated. PNPM, npm, or the specific runtime your app needs.

4. 04

   Clone and build

   Get the repo onto the server, install exact dependencies, run a production build until it passes.

5. 05

   Wire environment variables

   Every secret your app expects. One missing `.env` key breaks the whole deploy silently.

6. 06

   Attach a database

   Provision Postgres or MongoDB, create the user, open the right port, point your app at it.

7. 07

   Run it as a service

   PM2 or systemd so the app restarts after crashes and boots on reboot. Crashes will happen while you learn.

8. 08

   Configure HTTPS

   Install a reverse proxy, get a certificate, renew it automatically, force redirects to HTTPS.

9. 09

   Set up auto-deploy

   Webhooks or CI so `git push` ships updates without SSH-ing in by hand every time.

10. 10

    Add backup snapshots

    Wrap both your files and your database in a backup you can actually restore from.

11. 11

    Write a runbook

    Document where everything lives, how to restart it, and what to check when it breaks.