DigitalOcean

Postbase is a self-hosted auth and database platform for Next.js. Drop it into your stack, configure 25+ auth providers from a dashboard, and connect your app with a single SDK call. Think self-hosted Supabase or Clerk — you own the data, you control the infra.

About Hosting Postbase

On DigitalOcean, Postbase runs as an App Platform service built from Dockerfile.railway — a slim, Next.js-only image with no bundled Postgres. The app connects to a separate Managed Postgres database (provisioned automatically by the app spec), so the stateless app service can be redeployed on every push without ever touching your data.

Click Deploy to DigitalOcean in the README, review the pre-filled app spec, add an AUTH_SECRET, and deploy.

Common Use Cases

• Add auth to a Next.js app — enable email/password, magic links, or any of 25+ OAuth providers (GitHub, Google, Discord, and more) from the dashboard without writing auth code

• Self-host your user database — store users, sessions, and OAuth accounts in your own Postgres instance with full SQL access via the built-in editor

• Manage files and storage — connect Amazon S3, Cloudflare R2, Backblaze B2, or any S3-compatible bucket per-project from the dashboard

Dependencies

• Docker — App Platform builds and runs the image automatically from Dockerfile.railway at the repo root

• Managed Database (Postgres 16) — provisioned by .do/deploy.template.yaml; the app’s DATABASE_URL is bound to it automatically

Implementation Details

The app spec (.do/deploy.template.yaml) defines two components:

• postbase: Service (Dockerfile) — Next.js dashboard + auth/database API, built from Dockerfile.railway

• postbase-db: Managed Database (PG 16) — stores the _postbase schema: users, sessions, projects, cron jobs

The container listens on port 3000. App Platform terminates TLS and proxies your public URL to it. Health checks poll /api/health.

Environment variables set by the app spec:

DATABASE_URL      = ${postbase-db.DATABASE_URL}   # bound automatically
NEXTAUTH_URL       = ${APP_URL}                    # your App Platform public URL
NEXTAUTH_SECRET      = ${AUTH_SECRET}
POSTBASE_JWT_SECRET  = ${AUTH_SECRET}

AUTH_SECRET has no default value, so the App Platform create-app flow will prompt you to fill it in before deploying. Generate a strong value with openssl rand -base64 32.

Why Deploy Postbase on DigitalOcean?

App Platform gives you a fully managed build-and-deploy pipeline plus a managed Postgres database, without running your own infrastructure. Push to main and App Platform rebuilds and redeploys the postbase service while your database stays untouched — the same split-service model used in production Postbase deployments.