Self-hosting

Bee Flow's server and frontend are open-source under the Sustainable Use Licence. You can run the entire stack on your own infrastructure for free, for your own organisation.

What you'll run

Component	Image / package	Required?
Bee Flow server	ghcr.io/bee-flow/beeflow:latest	✅
Bee Flow frontend (hive)	@beeflow/frontend (npm) or build from source	✅
PostgreSQL 16+	postgres:16-alpine	✅
Redis 7	redis:7-alpine	recommended
Bee Flow Nextcloud connector	NC App Store (bee_flow)	optional
Guard service (PII detection)	ghcr.io/bee-flow/guard-service:latest	optional
Search service (KB ingestion + reranking)	ghcr.io/bee-flow/search-service:latest	optional

The minimum useful deployment is server + Postgres. Add Redis as soon as you scale to >1 server replica or >50 concurrent users.

Stack diagram

                Browser
                   │
                   ▼
       ┌──────────────────────┐
       │  Reverse proxy       │  Caddy / Nginx / Traefik / Cloudflare
       │  ─ TLS termination   │
       │  ─ Path routing      │
       └──────────┬───────────┘
                  │
       ┌──────────┼─────────────────┐
       │          │                 │
       ▼          ▼                 ▼
  ┌──────┐   ┌──────────┐     ┌────────────┐
  │ hive │   │ beeflow  │ ◀───│ bee_flow   │ (Nextcloud connector,
  │ /    │   │ /api/    │     │ ExApp      │  optional, same network)
  │ /app │   │ /auth/   │     └────────────┘
  └──────┘   └─────┬────┘
                   │
       ┌───────────┼──────────────┐
       │           │              │
       ▼           ▼              ▼
  ┌──────────┐ ┌────────┐  ┌─────────────────┐
  │ Postgres │ │ Redis  │  │ guard / search  │
  │  16      │ │  7     │  │ services        │
  └──────────┘ └────────┘  └─────────────────┘

Minimum and recommended hardware

	Minimum	Recommended	Heavy use
CPU	2 cores	4 cores	8 cores
RAM	4 GB	8 GB	16+ GB
Disk	10 GB	50 GB	200+ GB (KB)
Postgres	1 GB RAM	2 GB	4 GB
Network	100 Mbps	1 Gbps	1 Gbps +

The server is stateless when Redis is configured — scale horizontally. Postgres carries all durable state (users, agents, conversations, KB chunks, automation runs, audit log).

Pick your deploy target

• Docker Compose

Single host, simplest. Production-ready for most small/mid orgs.

• Kubernetes

Multi-node, Helm chart in progress. Use the manual manifests until then.

• Environment variables

The full reference for every BEEFLOW_* and dependency knob.

• Upgrades

Version skew policy, migration safety, rollback procedure.

Supported deploy targets

Target	Status	Notes
Docker Compose (single host)	✅	Recommended for self-hosters.
Kubernetes (manual manifests)	✅	Helm chart is on the roadmap.
Coolify	✅	deploy/coolify.json in the server repo.
Kamal	✅	Standard Docker image works.
Render / Fly / Railway	✅	Treat the server like any Node service, mount Postgres + Redis.
Vercel / Netlify (frontend only)	✅	Static dist/ from hive builds anywhere.
Cloudflare Pages (frontend only)	✅	Same.
Bare-metal (systemd)	⚠️	Works but unsupported — you maintain the service files.

Required external services

• At least one model provider — Anthropic, OpenAI, Mistral, Azure OpenAI, or a local Ollama endpoint.
• Postgres 16+ — primary store. Earlier versions lack required SQL features.
• DNS + TLS for the hostname your users hit (Let's Encrypt via Caddy is the simplest path).

Optional but commonly added:

• Azure AI Text Analytics — for the higher-quality Privacy Shield path.
• Azure Content Safety — for the moderation guardrail.
• Bing or Tavily — for the web-search agent tool.
• Voxtral / ElevenLabs — for voice features.

What's next

• Docker Compose recipe — full annotated stack.
• Environment variables — every BEEFLOW_* and dependency knob.
• Upgrades — version skew, migration safety, rollback.