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Self-hosting Strapi cost

Headless CMS

Strapi is a leading open-source headless CMS built on Node.js. It exposes content over REST and GraphQL and is typically backed by PostgreSQL, making it cheap to start and straightforward to scale horizontally behind a load balancer.

The tables below show the recommended minimum specification for Strapi at each user scale, and the cheapest matching plan on each of our tracked providers. Prices are approximate monthly list prices in USD.

Up to 100 users

Recommended minimum: 1 vCPU · 2 GB RAM

Node process + SQLite/Postgres is fine for small content teams.

ProviderPlanSpecsMonthlyDeploy
DigitalOceanPremium AMD · 1 vCPU1 vCPU / 2 GB$14Deploy
HetznerBestCPX112 vCPU / 2 GB$5.18Deploy
LinodeShared 2GB1 vCPU / 2 GB$12Deploy

Up to 500 users

Recommended minimum: 2 vCPU · 4 GB RAM

Move to managed Postgres; cache the GraphQL/REST layer.

ProviderPlanSpecsMonthlyDeploy
DigitalOceanPremium AMD · 2 vCPU2 vCPU / 4 GB$28Deploy
HetznerBestCPX213 vCPU / 4 GB$8.98Deploy
LinodeShared 4GB2 vCPU / 4 GB$24Deploy

Up to 1,000 users

Recommended minimum: 4 vCPU · 8 GB RAM

Run multiple Node instances behind a load balancer.

ProviderPlanSpecsMonthlyDeploy
DigitalOceanPremium AMD · 4 vCPU4 vCPU / 8 GB$56Deploy
HetznerBestCPX314 vCPU / 8 GB$16.90Deploy
LinodeShared 8GB4 vCPU / 8 GB$48Deploy

Up to 5,000 users (Enterprise)

Recommended minimum: 8 vCPU · 32 GB RAM

Enterprise architecture: run a horizontal cluster of stateless Node instances behind a load balancer, a managed PostgreSQL primary with read replicas, a shared Redis for sessions and rate limiting, and offload all media uploads to object storage fronted by a CDN. Build the admin panel ahead of deploy so app nodes stay immutable.

ProviderPlanSpecsMonthlyDeploy
DigitalOceanCPU-Optimized · 16 vCPU16 vCPU / 32 GB$294Deploy
HetznerBestCPX5116 vCPU / 32 GB$65.50Deploy
LinodeDedicated 32GB16 vCPU / 32 GB$288Deploy

Prices are approximate list prices and may change at any time; verify on the provider's official site before purchasing. Specs are conservative single-node starting points. Deploy links may contain referral codes. Try the interactive calculator.