Hostinger KVM 2 — the flagship path

The whole product on one box: storefront + staff admin app + API + database behind Caddy with automatic HTTPS. This is the flagship path — the full profile (Redis + Celery + websockets), measured comfortable at this tier.

• Target: Hostinger KVM 2 — 2 vCPU, 8 GB RAM, 100 GB NVMe (~$7–9/mo).
• Time: ~30–40 minutes, most of it waiting for installs.
• You need: this repo (your purchase download or git access), a domain name, and the ability to add three DNS records.

Danger

This is a VPS product (root SSH), not Hostinger’s shared/cPanel hosting. If you’re unsure which you have, check Requirements.

Get the server: Hostinger KVM 2 VPS

Disclosure

Some links on this page are affiliate links. If you sign up for hosting through them, Devxhub Limited — the studio behind Nudova — may earn a commission or credit, at no extra cost to you. It doesn't change your price, and it doesn't change what we recommend: we only point you at infrastructure we run Nudova on ourselves and trust.

1. Buy the VPS and pick the OS.

   Open Hostinger KVM 2 and complete the purchase, then in the setup flow (hPanel → VPS → Setup):

   • Operating system: Ubuntu 24.04 LTS — the plain OS, not a template with a control panel.
   • Set a strong root password, and add your SSH key if you have one (you can add it later — the hardening guide shows how to make one).

   Wait for the VPS to reach Running, then note its IP address from the dashboard.

2. Point your domain at the server.

   The box serves the whole product on three hostnames, so add three A records at your DNS provider:

   Type	Name	Value	TTL	Serves
   A	@ (bare domain, or a shop subdomain)	your VPS IP	300	storefront
   A	api	your VPS IP	300	Django API
   A	admin	your VPS IP	300	staff admin app

   We’ll use your-domain.com in the examples — substitute yours everywhere. DNS usually propagates in minutes; check with ping your-domain.com and ping api.your-domain.com until they answer with the VPS IP.

   Caution

   Do this step before docker compose up. HTTPS certificates for all three hosts are issued automatically at first boot — but only if DNS already points at the box.

3. Log in and install Docker.

   From your laptop’s terminal (Windows: PowerShell or PuTTY):

   ssh root@YOUR_VPS_IP

   On the server:

   apt-get update && apt-get -y upgrade
   curl -fsSL https://get.docker.com | sh
   docker --version && docker compose version   # both should print versions

4. Get the code.

   Clone your repository:

   apt-get -y install git
   git clone YOUR_REPO_URL /srv/app
   cd /srv/app

   …or upload your purchase zip and unpack it:

   # from your laptop:
   scp product.zip root@YOUR_VPS_IP:/srv/
   # on the server:
   apt-get -y install unzip && mkdir -p /srv/app && unzip /srv/product.zip -d /srv/app && cd /srv/app

5. Configure .env.

   cp .env.example .env
   nano .env

   Change at least these values (search with Ctrl+W in nano):

   Variable	Set it to
   DJANGO_SECRET_KEY	a fresh random key — generate on the server: docker run --rm python:3.13-slim python -c "import secrets; print(secrets.token_urlsafe(64))"
   DOMAIN	your-domain.com — the shop domain; the api. and admin. hosts, allowed hosts, CORS and CSRF all derive from it automatically
   DB_PASSWORD	a strong database password
   DJANGO_SUPERUSER_USERNAME / _EMAIL / _PASSWORD	your admin login (created automatically on first boot)

   Optional now, easy later (all runtime — see Branding & domains): APP_NAME, BRAND_ACCENT / BRAND_LOGO_URL, provider keys for payments / SMS / couriers (the .env comments name each), and ADMIN_ENABLED_DOMAINS. Brand and theme are best set in the tenant config after first boot.

   Leave DJANGO_ENV=production and DJANGO_DEBUG=False as they are. Save and exit: Ctrl+O, Enter, Ctrl+X.

6. Launch (full profile).

   docker compose -f docker-compose.yml -f docker-compose.full.yml up -d

   First run builds the API image, pulls the prebuilt storefront + admin images, and starts everything — expect 5–10 minutes. The web container waits for the database, migrates, collects static files and creates your superuser by itself; there are no manual steps. The two Next.js apps are configured entirely by .env at start-up — never rebuilt.

   Watch it come up:

   docker compose logs -f web        # Ctrl+C to stop watching
   docker compose ps                 # wait for web: "(healthy)"

7. Verify.

   curl -s https://api.your-domain.com/health/          # API
   curl -s https://your-domain.com/api/config           # storefront runtime config
   curl -s https://admin.your-domain.com/api/config     # admin runtime config

   The first shows "status": "success"; the other two return the public runtime config each app derived from your .env — all over real Let’s Encrypt certificates Caddy obtained automatically. Then open your shop (https://your-domain.com), the staff app (https://admin.your-domain.com), and the deep-ops console (https://api.your-domain.com/admin/; log in with the superuser from .env).

Done — you're live on the full profile

A full storefront, staff admin and API on HTTPS, with real-time feeds and background workers, on an 8 GB box for well under $10/mo. Now do the two follow-ups every deployment needs: hardening (10 minutes) and a skim of upgrades & backups.

If something doesn’t work

Symptom	Likely cause / fix
Browser warns about the certificate	DNS wasn’t pointing at the VPS when Caddy started. Fix the A record, then docker compose restart caddy.
curl: connection refused	Ports blocked — check docker compose ps shows caddy Up, and no firewall is blocking 80/443 (see hardening; Hostinger’s hPanel firewall must also allow 80/443).
DisallowedHost error page	Your domain isn’t in DJANGO_ALLOWED_HOSTS → edit .env and docker compose up -d web.
web container restarts repeatedly	docker compose logs web — most often a missing/weak DJANGO_SECRET_KEY (production refuses keys under 50 chars) or a DB password mismatch after an earlier attempt (docker compose down -v wipes the old database volume, then up -d again — only safe before you have real data).
Want to seed a demo catalog to click around	docker compose exec web python manage.py seed_client --profile belltex --demo