Self-host Docmost

Before you start

Docmost is the sleeper hit of the Notion-alternatives space — modern collaborative wiki, AGPL-3.0, deploys cleanly on a €3.79/month Hetzner CX22. This guide goes from empty server to editing your first page in about 30 minutes.

You'll need:

• A domain (e.g. wiki.yourcompany.com) with DNS pointing to your server.
• An SMTP account (Postmark, Resend, SES). Docmost uses it for invitations and password resets.

Step 1 · Provision (5 min)

ssh root@YOUR_SERVER_IP
adduser deploy && usermod -aG sudo deploy
rsync --archive --chown=deploy:deploy ~/.ssh /home/deploy
sed -i 's/^#\?PasswordAuthentication.*/PasswordAuthentication no/' /etc/ssh/sshd_config
systemctl restart ssh

Step 2 · DNS (5 min)

wiki.yourcompany.com → YOUR_SERVER_IP

Step 3 · Docker (5 min)

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install -y ca-certificates curl gnupg
sudo install -m 0755 -d /etc/apt/keyrings
curl -fsSL https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu/gpg | sudo gpg --dearmor -o /etc/apt/keyrings/docker.gpg
sudo chmod a+r /etc/apt/keyrings/docker.gpg
echo "deb [arch=$(dpkg --print-architecture) signed-by=/etc/apt/keyrings/docker.gpg] https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu $(lsb_release -cs) stable" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/docker.list > /dev/null
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install -y docker-ce docker-ce-cli containerd.io docker-buildx-plugin docker-compose-plugin
sudo usermod -aG docker $USER && newgrp docker

Step 4 · Compose stack (10 min)

mkdir -p ~/docmost && cd ~/docmost
mkdir -p caddy_data caddy_config docmost_data postgres_data redis_data

~/docmost/docker-compose.yml:

services:
  postgres:
    image: postgres:16-alpine
    restart: unless-stopped
    environment:
      POSTGRES_DB: docmost
      POSTGRES_USER: docmost
      POSTGRES_PASSWORD: ${POSTGRES_PASSWORD}
    volumes:
      - ./postgres_data:/var/lib/postgresql/data
    healthcheck:
      test: ["CMD-SHELL", "pg_isready -U docmost -d docmost"]
      interval: 10s

  redis:
    image: redis:7-alpine
    restart: unless-stopped
    volumes:
      - ./redis_data:/data

  docmost:
    image: docmost/docmost:latest
    restart: unless-stopped
    depends_on:
      postgres:
        condition: service_healthy
      redis:
        condition: service_started
    environment:
      APP_URL: https://${DOCMOST_HOST}
      APP_SECRET: ${APP_SECRET}
      DATABASE_URL: postgresql://docmost:${POSTGRES_PASSWORD}@postgres:5432/docmost
      REDIS_URL: redis://redis:6379
      MAIL_DRIVER: smtp
      SMTP_HOST: smtp.postmarkapp.com
      SMTP_PORT: 587
      SMTP_USERNAME: ${SMTP_TOKEN}
      SMTP_PASSWORD: ${SMTP_TOKEN}
      MAIL_FROM_ADDRESS: wiki@yourcompany.com
      MAIL_FROM_NAME: Wiki
      STORAGE_DRIVER: local
    volumes:
      - ./docmost_data:/app/data/storage
    expose:
      - "3000"

  caddy:
    image: caddy:2-alpine
    restart: unless-stopped
    ports:
      - "80:80"
      - "443:443"
    volumes:
      - ./Caddyfile:/etc/caddy/Caddyfile:ro
      - ./caddy_data:/data
      - ./caddy_config:/config
    depends_on:
      - docmost

~/docmost/Caddyfile:

${DOCMOST_HOST} {
  reverse_proxy docmost:3000
}

~/docmost/.env:

DOCMOST_HOST=wiki.yourcompany.com
POSTGRES_PASSWORD=RANDOM_32_CHARS
APP_SECRET=RANDOM_HEX_32_CHARS
SMTP_TOKEN=YOUR_POSTMARK_SERVER_TOKEN

openssl rand -hex 32 for APP_SECRET.

Step 5 · Bring it up (5 min)

docker compose up -d
docker compose logs -f docmost

Wait for Nest application successfully started. Ctrl+C.

Open https://wiki.yourcompany.com. Sign up as the first user — that user becomes workspace owner.

Step 6 · Firewall and backups

sudo ufw allow 22/tcp && sudo ufw allow 80/tcp && sudo ufw allow 443/tcp && sudo ufw --force enable

Nightly backup — Postgres and uploaded files:

sudo tee /etc/cron.daily/docmost-backup > /dev/null <<'EOF'
#!/bin/bash
set -e
BACKUP_DIR=/home/deploy/backups
mkdir -p "$BACKUP_DIR"
docker exec docmost-postgres-1 pg_dump -U docmost docmost | gzip > "$BACKUP_DIR/docmost-pg-$(date +%Y%m%d).sql.gz"
tar czf "$BACKUP_DIR/docmost-files-$(date +%Y%m%d).tar.gz" -C /home/deploy/docmost docmost_data
find "$BACKUP_DIR" -name "docmost-*" -mtime +14 -delete
EOF
sudo chmod +x /etc/cron.daily/docmost-backup

Common pitfalls

• SMTP is required for real use. Skipping the mailer config means invites and password resets don't work. Postmark's free tier is enough for a small team.
• File uploads land in docmost_data. If you outgrow local storage, switch to STORAGE_DRIVER: s3 with an S3-compatible bucket (Backblaze B2, Cloudflare R2, MinIO). Your backup strategy must cover it either way.
• Real-time collaboration uses WebSockets. Caddy handles the upgrade automatically. If you swap in nginx, add explicit proxy_http_version 1.1 and Upgrade/Connection headers.
• Search is Postgres full-text by default. Works fine to ~50k pages. Beyond that consider swapping in Meilisearch — Docmost supports it.

Notion import

Export your Notion workspace as Markdown + CSV (Settings → Export → Export all workspace content). Use Docmost's built-in Notion importer (Settings → Import → Notion) and upload the ZIP. Pages import reliably; databases become tables. Rebuild views, permissions, and relations by hand.

Updating

cd ~/docmost
docker compose pull
docker compose up -d
docker image prune -f

What you're paying vs Notion

• Docmost on Hetzner CX22: €45/year (~$50) + minimal maintenance.
• Notion Team, 5 users: $600/year.
• Notion Business, 5 users: $1,080/year.

Docmost is the honest choice when your Notion use case is "team wiki with search and permissions." Deploys in an evening, runs quietly, doesn't need weekly attention.