Deploy 200+ self-hosted apps with one command.
Stacker is the open-source deployment engine behind TryDirect. Pick a template, run stacker deploy, and your app is running on your laptop, your server, or the cloud — with SSL, health checks, and secrets set up for you.
Quick Start
Three commands. That's it.
# Install Stacker CLI curl -fsSL https://get.stacker.sh | bash # Clone the catalog and pick a template git clone https://github.com/trydirect/awesome-selfhosted-stacker cd awesome-selfhosted-stacker/stacker-projects/umami # Generate secrets and deploy ./scripts/generate-secrets.sh stacker deploy
Deploys locally by default. Switch to a server or cloud with --target server or --target cloud.
Sellable AI Stacks for Agencies
Ship self-hosted AI to your clients: build the stack once, deploy it into every client's own cloud account. Your blueprint stays yours. Their server, their data, their bill from Hetzner or AWS. You keep the retainer.
AI Knowledge Base (RAG)
Replaces ChatGPT Enterprise / Glean
Dify + Qdrant + Ollama + PostgreSQL. Ship an internal RAG search over your client's own documents. No OpenAI bill, no data leaving their cloud. Charge a monthly retainer for setup and tuning.
Private Sovereign AI
Replaces ChatGPT / Claude
Open WebUI + Ollama + Pipelines. Deploy an in-house ChatGPT for EU, healthcare, and legal clients who cannot send data to US APIs. GDPR-clean because their server holds everything.
AI Automation Workflows
Replaces Zapier + LangChain hosted
Flowise + n8n + Ollama + Qdrant + PostgreSQL. Build client automations once (email triage, lead scoring, doc pipelines), then clone the same stack into every client's cloud account. One blueprint, N recurring engagements.
Deploy your own copy
To run the same stack on your own fresh cloud box, clone the template and change three lines. Everything else — reverse proxy, SSL, healthchecks, secrets — is handled by stacker deploy.
Step 1 — clone and pick a stack
git clone https://github.com/trydirect/awesome-selfhosted-stacker cd awesome-selfhosted-stacker/stacker-projects/private-sovereign-ai
Step 2 — change three lines in stacker.yml
install:
inputs:
commonDomain: your-subdomain.your-company.com # ← your domain
deploy:
target: cloud # or 'server' for BYO box
cloud:
provider: hetzner # hetzner|digitalocean|aws|linode|vultr
region: fsn1
size: cpx32
ssh_key: ~/.ssh/id_ed25519 # ← your SSH key pathPrefer to deploy to a Linux box you already own? Change target: cloud → target: server and add server: {host: 1.2.3.4, user: root}.
Step 3 — generate secrets and deploy
cp .env.example .env ./scripts/generate-secrets.sh # random passwords, JWT keys, API tokens stacker deploy # ~8 minutes for a fresh cloud box
Point your DNS at the IP shown at the end of the deploy, and NPM auto-issues a Let's Encrypt certificate on the next visit. See the full deploy timeline →
More Featured Templates
Six of the most-deployed apps in the catalog. All 200+ templates are available in the GitHub repo.
Umami
Replaces Google Analytics
Privacy-friendly web analytics. Own your visitor data, no cookies, GDPR-ready.
View template →Plausible
Replaces Google Analytics
Lightweight, open-source analytics with a clean dashboard and shareable links.
View template →Outline
Replaces Notion
Team wiki and knowledge base. Markdown-native, real-time collaboration.
View template →Vaultwarden
Replaces 1Password / LastPass
Self-hosted Bitwarden-compatible password manager. Runs on any Docker host.
View template →Ghost
Replaces Substack / Medium
Modern publishing platform for blogs, newsletters, and paid memberships.
View template →Gitea
Replaces GitHub / GitLab
Lightweight self-hosted Git service with issues, pull requests, and CI/CD.
View template →What's in the Catalog
200+ apps across every major self-hosted category.
Why Stacker?
One YAML, three targets
The same stacker.yml deploys to your laptop, a Linux server you SSH to, or a fresh cloud VM. No dashboard required.
Batteries included
Every template ships with health checks, secret generation, backup hooks, and reverse-proxy config. No 30-page setup guide.
Config as code
Commit stacker.yml to git. Deploy from CI. Roll back with git revert. Same tools you already use.
FAQ
Is Stacker really open source?
Yes. Stacker is MIT-licensed and lives at github.com/trydirect/stacker. The 200+ template catalog at github.com/trydirect/awesome-selfhosted-stacker is also fully open. You can deploy locally, to your own server, or to any cloud provider without ever touching try.direct.
What is the difference between Stacker and TryDirect?
Stacker is the open-source CLI and deployment engine. TryDirect is the managed platform built on top of Stacker — it adds a visual UI, managed servers, backups, and support. If you like doing it yourself, Stacker is enough. If you want it managed, TryDirect handles it.
Where does Stacker deploy to?
Three targets: local (your machine, for development), server (any Linux host you SSH to), or cloud (Hetzner, DigitalOcean, AWS, Linode, Vultr). Same stacker.yml works across all three.
How is this different from Coolify, Dokploy, or CapRover?
Stacker treats a stack as a single YAML file that you commit to git and deploy from CLI or CI. No dashboard required to deploy. The catalog is a git repo, not a marketplace behind an admin UI. Coolify and CapRover are dashboard-first; Stacker is config-file-first.
Do I need to know Docker?
You need Docker installed on the target machine. You do not need to know how to write Dockerfiles or Compose files — the templates handle that. If you want to customize, everything is plain YAML that you can edit.
Auto-SSL Included
Every stack in the catalog ships with Nginx Proxy Manager pre-configured. Add a domain, and stacker requests a Let's Encrypt certificate automatically — no certbot dance, no Caddyfile to hand-edit. The AI stacks above use this exact setup.