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Discover top open-source software, updated regularly with real-world adoption signals.
Discover top open-source software, updated regularly with real-world adoption signals.
Deploy side projects to your VPS like Fly.io
CLI tool that transforms any Ubuntu VPS into a production-ready platform with one-command setup, zero-downtime deploys, automatic SSL, and built-in secrets management.
Sidekick brings the simplicity of modern PaaS platforms to your own VPS. Designed for developers tired of vendor lock-in and rising hosting costs, it automates the entire journey from bare metal Ubuntu server to production-ready infrastructure in minutes.
With a single sidekick init command, your VPS is configured with Docker, Traefik reverse proxy, automatic SSL certificate provisioning, and SOPS-based secrets encryption. Deploy any Dockerfile-based application with sidekick launch, and push updates with zero downtime using sidekick deploy. Preview environments tied to git commits let you test changes before promoting to production.
Sidekick targets developers hosting side projects, MVPs, and small-to-medium production workloads who want control over their infrastructure without operational complexity. The tool handles load balancing, high availability, and security hardening automatically. Whether you're using DigitalOcean, Hetzner, or your own hardware, any Ubuntu VPS with SSH access becomes a powerful deployment target—often handling significant traffic on an $8/month instance.
When teams consider Sidekick, these hosted platforms usually appear on the same shortlist.
Looking for a hosted option? These are the services engineering teams benchmark against before choosing open source.
MVP Launch on a Shoestring Budget
Deploy a full-stack web app with SSL and secrets management for under $10/month while retaining flexibility to scale or migrate.
Multi-Project Developer Portfolio
Host a dozen side projects on a single VPS with automatic routing, SSL, and zero-downtime updates for each application.
Preview Environments for Solo Developers
Test feature branches in isolated environments tied to git commits before merging, all on the same VPS infrastructure.
Escape Heroku or Fly.io Lock-In
Migrate existing Dockerfile-based apps to your own VPS with comparable deployment experience and predictable monthly costs.
Sidekick creates a non-root user, disables root login, installs Docker and Traefik, configures SOPS/age encryption keys, and sets up automatic SSL certificate provisioning—all in about two minutes.
It checks your default .ssh directory for id_rsa.pub, id_ecdsa.pub, or id_ed25519.pub, and also tries keys loaded in ssh-agent. Add custom keys via ssh-add before running Sidekick.
Sidekick builds a new Docker image, transfers it to the VPS, and uses Docker Compose with Traefik to route traffic seamlessly from the old container to the new one without dropping requests.
Yes. Point your domain's DNS A record to your VPS IP address, then specify the domain during sidekick launch. SSL certificates are provisioned automatically via Traefik.
Any provider offering Ubuntu LTS with SSH access works—DigitalOcean and Hetzner are recommended, but you can also use your own hardware as long as it has a public IP.
Project at a glance
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