Docker
The easiest way to get started with Typebot is with the official managed service in the Cloud. You’ll have high availability, backups, security, and maintenance all managed for you by me, Baptiste, Typebot’s founder. The cloud version can save a substantial amount of developer time and resources. For most sites this ends up being the best value option and the revenue goes to funding the maintenance and further development of Typebot. So you’ll be supporting fair source software and getting a great service!
Requirements
You need a server with Docker installed. If your server doesn’t come with Docker pre-installed, you can follow their docs to install it.
Installation
1. Download the compose file
On your server, download the latest docker-compose.yml
and the starter .env
file:
2. Add the required configuration
-
You’ll first need a random 32-character secret key which will be used to encrypt sensitive data. Here is a simple way to generate one:
-
Fill the
.env
file with your values. -
Configure at least one authentication provider (Email, Google, GitHub, Facebook or GitLab). More info here: Configuration.
By default the compose file will pull the latest stable Typebot images: baptistearno/typebot-builder:latest
and baptistearno/typebot-viewer:latest
. You can decide to replace latest
with a specific version. You can find all the existing tags here
3. Start the server
Once you’ve added your configuration to the compose file, you’re ready to start up the server:
When you run this command, by default, it does the following:
- Create a database
- Run the migrations
- Start the builder on port 8080
- Start the viewer on port 8081
- All Typebot’s data is stored in the
.typebot
folder in the current directory
You can now navigate to http://typebot.domain.com:8080
and see the login screen. Login with the admin email to have access to a Team plan workspace automatically.
Typebot server itself does not perform SSL termination. It only runs on unencrypted HTTP. If you want to run on HTTPS you also need to set up a reverse proxy in front of the server. See below instructions.
Update Typebot
Typebot is updated regularly, but it is up to you to apply these updates on your server. By virtue of using Docker, these updates are safe and easy to apply.
-
Pull the new images:
Alternatively, you can pull specific versions:
-
Stop the server:
-
Start the server (with the new images):
The self-hosted version is somewhat of a LTS, only getting the changes (~ once per month) after they have been battle tested on the cloud version. If you want features as soon as they are available, consider becoming a cloud user.
Optional extras
Reverse proxy
By default, Typebot runs on unencrypted HTTP on ports 8080 for the builder and 8081 for the viewer. We recommend running it on HTTPS behind a reverse proxy of some sort. You may or may not already be running a reverse proxy on your host, let’s look at both options:
No existing reverse proxy
If your DNS is managed by a service that offers a proxy option with automatic SSL management, feel free to use that. For example, you could use Cloudflare as a reverse proxy in front of Typebot.
Alternatively, you can run your Caddy server as a reverse proxy. This way your SSL certificate will be stored on the host machine and managed by Let’s Encrypt. The Caddy server will expose port 443, terminate SSL traffic and proxy the requests to your Typebot server.
Here is an example of a docker-compose file using Caddy as a reverse proxy:
This config requires you to add the following DNS entry:
You can merge this compose file with the first one. Make sure that NEXTAUTH_URL
is set to https://typebot.domain.com
and NEXT_PUBLIC_VIEWER_URL
is set to https://bot.domain.com
.
When running the compose file, it should automatically enable SSL on your server and you should be able to navigate to:
https://typebot.domain.com
for the builderhttps://bot.domain.com
for the viewer
Existing reverse proxy
If you’re already running a reverse proxy, the most important things to note are:
- Configure the virtual hosts to match the
NEXTAUTH_URL
andNEXT_PUBLIC_VIEWER_URL
in yourdocker-compose
configuration. - Proxy the traffic to
127.0.0.1:8080
or{ip-address}:8080
and to127.0.0.1:8081
or{ip-address}:8081
if running on a remote machine
SMTP
I highly recommend using an external SMTP service. There are tons of options out there, including SendInBlue, Mailgun and SendGrid. It will avoid severe headaches 😅. Then, you will only need to add the required SMTP configuration variables.
If, however, you don’t want to, you can instantiate an SMTP server in the docker-compose file.
And add the following variables to your .env
file:
You will probably need to make sure that typebot.domain.com
has a valid SPF record and that your server IP has a rDNS set up.
You can merge this compose file with the main one.
S3 storage
If you don’t already have an S3 storage available, you could include it in your docker-compose file:
And add the following variables to your .env
file:
This config requires you to add the following DNS entry:
You can merge this compose file with the main one.
Config example with all the extras
Here is a config example that spins up Typebot with HTTPS, SMTP and S3 storage.
Build your own images
To build your own builder Docker image
To build your own viewer Docker image
If you’re self-hosting Typebot, sponsoring me is a great way to give back to the community and to contribute to the long-term sustainability of the project. It also comes with some perks like priority support and private workshops. ❤️
This doc has been inspired by Plausible docs. They have a similar self-hosting solutions, and their documentation is 🔥.