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What's the most cost-efficient way to deploy strapi into digitalocean

Posted on February 6, 2025

I have multiple apps on app-platform each with a managed database and was wondering how i could reduce costs and still make it work , i have 5 websites that i host on vercel with the strapi on digital ocean



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Hey! 👋

If you’re looking to cut costs while keeping Strapi running smoothly, here are a few options:

  • Instead of running it on App Platform, a single $7–$14/month Droplet can handle multiple Strapi instances. You can still use a Managed Database or run PostgreSQL/MySQL on the same Droplet

https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/droplets/how-to/create/

  • If each app has its own database, consider consolidating them into one. Strapi supports multi-tenancy, so multiple projects can share a single DB:

https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/databases/postgresql/how-to/manage-users-and-databases/

  • If a Managed Database is over budget, running PostgreSQL or MySQL on a Droplet can save money, but you’ll have to handle backups and maintenance:

https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-install-postgresql-on-ubuntu-20-04-quickstart

If the websites don’t need Vercel’s premium features, hosting them on a Droplet with Nginx could be cheaper.

A $14–$28/month setup (Droplet + Shared DB) should work well for multiple Strapi instances.

Hope this helps!

- Bobby

Heya, @luigihard

As Bobby mentioned you can try running the setup on a droplet and test if the performance is sufficient with your needs. You’ll need to take care for updates and backups and setup monitoring, but this can cut costs.

Regards

Heya,

I believe the way to go would be to use a Droplet and host your applications there. Even if you have split them into different Droplets to have more of a balanced solution it should be alright and still cheaper to do.

The downside of this is that you’ll have to manage everything yourself.

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