Self-Hosting

You can run the full Pia stack on your own infrastructure using Docker Compose.

You need a licence file

Every Pia server runs on a signed .lic, including the free Community Edition. Without one the server comes up in setup mode and serves nothing but sign-in and the setup page. Request the free Community licence from kontakt@pia-ai.de, then follow the Community Edition walkthrough to activate it.

Requirements

• Docker and Docker Compose
• A domain with DNS configured
• 1 GB RAM minimum

Quick Start

1. Get the deployment bundle:

Pia Server is source-available. Request the server source, the deployment files used below (docker-compose.prod.yml, .env.example, Caddyfile) and access to the container images from kontakt@pia-ai.de — the same address that issues the licence. Unpack what you get back, then run the remaining steps from that directory.

2. Copy and configure the environment file:

cp .env.example .env.prod

3. Set the required environment variables in .env.prod:

JWT_SECRET_KEY=<generate-a-random-64-char-string>
ENCRYPTION_MASTER_KEY=<generate-a-random-64-char-string>
POSTGRES_PASSWORD=<strong-password>

4. Start the services:

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

Architecture

The production stack consists of:

Service	Image	Port	Purpose
Caddy	caddy:2-alpine	80, 443	Reverse proxy + auto HTTPS
Pia Server	ghcr.io/pia-ai-dev/pia-server	8080	API server
PostgreSQL	postgres:17-alpine	5432	Database

Caddy Configuration

Update the Caddyfile with your domain:

your-domain.com {
    reverse_proxy pia-server:8080
}

Caddy handles TLS certificate provisioning automatically via Let’s Encrypt.

Updating

docker compose -f docker-compose.prod.yml pull
docker compose -f docker-compose.prod.yml up -d