Deploy Umami on Dokku

Deploy Umami, the lightweight privacy-focused web analytics tool on Dokku.

If you’re looking for a VPS providor, I recommend Hetzner for its affordability and performance.

Let’s get started

If you don’t already have Dokku installed on your server. Follow the Dokku installation guide to set it up.

We’ll be doing a dokku git deployment, more on this here: Dokku Git Deployment.

Before we get started take a look at the official Umami docker compose file for more details on configuration. Here we learn the following.

• It listens on port 3000
• It depends on PostgreSQL
• It requires the env variables DATABASE_URL, DATABASE_TYPE and HASH_SALT

Prepare Dokku and Umami image

Create the dokku app

dokku apps:create umami

Pull the docker image

docker pull docker.umami.dev/umami-software/umami:postgresql-latest

Create PostgreSQL database

Install the PostgreSQL plugin if you haven’t already:

postgres plugin: sudo dokku plugin:install https://github.com/dokku/dokku-postgres.git postgres

Create a PostgreSQL database for Umami:

dokku postgres:create umami-postgres

This creates the DATABASE_URL that Umami will use to connect to PostgreSQL.

Link the PostgreSQL database to the Umami app:

dokku postgres:link umami-postgres umami

Configure Umami Environment Variables

dokku config:set umami \
  DATABASE_TYPE=postgresql \
  HASH_SALT=$(openssl rand -hex 32)

Setting a random HASH_SALT using OpenSSL.

Change the port mappings

By default, Dokku apps listen on port 5000. Since Umami listens on port 3000, we need to change the port mapping:

dokku ports:add umami https:443:3000

Add your domain

Optional but recommended, set up a domain.

dokku domains:add umami yourdomain.com

Deploy it 🚀

dokku git:from-image umami docker.umami.dev/umami-software/umami:postgresql-latest

And you are done!

Access it 🔑

Login with admin/umami, change the password, and add your site.

Update it 👍

To update Umami, you can pull the latest Docker image and redeploy:

Pull the latest image:

docker pull docker.umami.dev/umami-software/umami:postgresql-latest

Run

dokku git:from-image umami docker.umami.dev/umami-software/umami:postgresql-latest

Rebuild:

dokku ps:rebuild umami

MAY 28, 2025