From Zero to Live: How I Deploy 5 Apps on a Single $5 VPS

Yes, you read that right. Five separate applications running on one cheap server. Here's my exact setup.

Why One Server?

When I started building side projects, I made the mistake every beginner makes:

One Heroku app per project = $7-14/month each

After 4 projects, I was paying $56/month for apps that had zero users. That's when I discovered the magic of a single VPS:

$5/month total (not per app)

Full control over everything

Skills you'll use forever (Linux, Nginx, systemd)

Unlimited apps (within resource limits)

Here's how I run 5 applications on one server.

The Hardware

I'm using a Tencent Cloud Lighthouse instance (similar to DigitalOcean Droplet):

CPU: 2 cores RAM: 4GB Disk: 60GB SSD Bandwidth: 1TB/month Cost: ~$5/month

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Any provider works: DigitalOcean, Linode, Hetzner, Vultr — pick whatever has a data center close to your users.

If you don't have a server yet, DigitalOcean gives you $200…