Self-hosting

Run your own Kortix instance with Docker Compose, on a VPS or for evaluation.

Kortix runs as one Docker Compose stack: the frontend, the API, the LLM gateway, and the Supabase distribution. This page shows the three ways to install it, how updates work, and how to back up your data.

Agent sessions run on a separate sandbox provider, not on this stack. The default is Daytona; Platinum and E2B are also supported.

One-shot bootstrap

On a bare Linux box, one command installs Docker, installs the kortix CLI, and starts the stack:

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/kortix-ai/suna/main/scripts/kortix-selfhost-up.sh \
  | bash -s -- --domain kortix.example.com --email ops@example.com

This script runs on Linux only. On another OS, install the CLI directly and use the manual path below.

Manual path

Install the CLI

curl -fsSL https://kortix.com/install | bash

Point DNS, then initialize

Create an A/AAAA record for your domain and for api.<domain>, both pointing at the box’s IP. Open ports 80 and 443 — the bundled Caddy proxy uses them to issue a TLS certificate. Then run:

kortix self-host init --domain kortix.example.com

Start the stack

kortix self-host start

Check kortix self-host status, logs, and doctor while the stack starts.

Evaluation mode

To try Kortix with no domain, use a Cloudflare tunnel instead of a domain:

kortix self-host init --tunnel cloudflare
kortix self-host start

The tunnel URL changes on every restart. Use this mode for evaluation, not production.

After the stack starts, set your sandbox provider key:

kortix self-host configure

configure is an interactive prompt for the sandbox provider key, and optionally a managed-git token. Sign up in the dashboard, then connect your own LLM key in the model picker. Self-hosted instances use your own key by default.

Each API container has a 640 MiB memory limit by default. Keep this default on an 8 GiB host. Use a 1 GiB limit on a 16 GiB host when API traffic reaches the default limit:

kortix self-host env set KORTIX_API_MEMORY_LIMIT=1024m

Confirm the applied limit with docker stats --no-stream.

Updates

Every instance updates itself automatically. Pin an exact version instead:

kortix self-host update --tag 0.9.84

Turn the updater off with --auto-update off. See Self-hosting architecture for the update schedule, the zero-downtime swap, and the channels.

Backups

Kortix has no separate backup system. Each instance stores its data as two directories under ~/.config/kortix/self-host/<instance>/: volumes/db/data (the Postgres database) and volumes/storage (file storage). The instance’s .env file holds every secret and signing key it uses. Back up all three before you run a destructive command.

Learn more

Self-hosting architecture — how the stack fits together.
CLI reference — every kortix self-host subcommand and flag.