Deploy Formbricks on a VPS

Formbricks is an open-source survey platform for link, embedded website and in-app surveys. This guide runs it with PostgreSQL (pgvector), Valkey/Redis-compatible cache, Nginx and HTTPS on one VPS.

Prerequisites

Item	Minimum	Recommended
VPS	2 vCPU, 2 GB RAM, 30 GB NVMe	2–4 vCPU, 4 GB RAM, 50 GB NVMe
OS	Ubuntu 24.04 LTS	Ubuntu 26.04 LTS
DNS	A record for `surveys.example.com`	AAAA record too, if IPv6 is configured
SMTP	Optional	Recommended for invites, resets and verification

Deploy the VPS, point DNS to its IP and confirm dig +short surveys.example.com resolves before requesting TLS. Replace the example domain and admin@example.com below. Commands assume root (su - if needed).

Step 1: Prepare the server

shell

ssh root@YOUR_VPS_IP
apt update && apt -y upgrade
apt -y install curl ca-certificates openssl ufw nginx certbot python3-certbot-nginx
hostnamectl set-hostname surveys
timedatectl set-timezone America/New_York

On a 2 GB plan, add swap for startup and migrations:

shell

fallocate -l 2G /swapfile
chmod 600 /swapfile
mkswap /swapfile
swapon /swapfile
echo '/swapfile none swap sw 0 0' >> /etc/fstab

If your SSH port is not 22, allow the correct port before enabling the firewall.

shell

ufw allow OpenSSH
ufw allow 'Nginx Full'
ufw --force enable
ufw status

Step 2: Install Docker

shell

curl -fsSL https://get.docker.com | sh
systemctl enable --now docker
docker --version
docker compose version

Docker-published ports can bypass UFW. Only the app port is bound to 127.0.0.1 below; the database and cache are not published.

Step 3: Configure the stack

shell

mkdir -p /opt/formbricks
cd /opt/formbricks
cat > .env <<EOF_ENV
FORMBRICKS_VERSION=latest
WEBAPP_URL=https://surveys.example.com
NEXTAUTH_URL=https://surveys.example.com
NEXTAUTH_SECRET=$(openssl rand -hex 32)
ENCRYPTION_KEY=$(openssl rand -hex 32)
CRON_SECRET=$(openssl rand -hex 32)
POSTGRES_PASSWORD=$(openssl rand -hex 24)
EMAIL_VERIFICATION_DISABLED=1
PASSWORD_RESET_DISABLED=1
#MAIL_FROM=surveys@example.com
#SMTP_HOST=smtp.example.com
#SMTP_PORT=587
#SMTP_USER=surveys@example.com
#SMTP_PASSWORD=change-me
#SMTP_SECURE_ENABLED=0
EOF_ENV
chmod 600 .env

Keep ENCRYPTION_KEY safe with the database backups. Without the original key, encrypted data cannot be read after a restore. When SMTP is configured, remove the two _DISABLED lines and add your mail settings. Pin FORMBRICKS_VERSION to a tested tag from Formbricks releases rather than latest in production.

Create /opt/formbricks/docker-compose.yml:

shell

services:
  postgres:
    image: pgvector/pgvector:pg17
    restart: unless-stopped
    environment:
      POSTGRES_USER: formbricks
      POSTGRES_PASSWORD: ${POSTGRES_PASSWORD}
      POSTGRES_DB: formbricks
    volumes:
      - postgres:/var/lib/postgresql/data
    healthcheck:
      test: ["CMD-SHELL", "pg_isready -U formbricks"]
      interval: 10s
      timeout: 5s
      retries: 5

  redis:
    image: valkey/valkey:8-alpine
    restart: unless-stopped
    command: valkey-server --appendonly yes
    volumes:
      - redis:/data

  formbricks:
    image: ghcr.io/formbricks/formbricks:${FORMBRICKS_VERSION}
    restart: unless-stopped
    depends_on:
      postgres:
        condition: service_healthy
      redis:
        condition: service_started
    env_file: .env
    environment:
      DATABASE_URL: postgresql://formbricks:${POSTGRES_PASSWORD}@postgres:5432/formbricks?schema=public
      REDIS_URL: redis://redis:6379
    ports:
      - "127.0.0.1:3000:3000"
    volumes:
      - uploads:/home/nextjs/apps/web/uploads

volumes:
  postgres:
  redis:
  uploads:

For external uploads, Formbricks also supports S3-compatible storage through its S3_* environment settings.

Step 4: Start Formbricks

shell

cd /opt/formbricks
docker compose pull
docker compose up -d
docker compose logs -f formbricks

Startup migrations can take a couple of minutes. Press Ctrl+C once ready, then check curl -sI http://127.0.0.1:3000 | head -n 1 for a 200 or redirect response.

Step 5: Configure Nginx and HTTPS

Create /etc/nginx/sites-available/formbricks:

shell

server {
    listen 80;
    listen [::]:80;
    server_name surveys.example.com;
    client_max_body_size 50M;

    location / {
        proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:3000;
        proxy_http_version 1.1;
        proxy_set_header Host $host;
        proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Proto $scheme;
        proxy_set_header Upgrade $http_upgrade;
        proxy_set_header Connection "upgrade";
        proxy_read_timeout 300s;
    }
}

shell

ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/formbricks /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/
rm -f /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/default
nginx -t && systemctl reload nginx
certbot --nginx -d surveys.example.com --redirect -m admin@example.com --agree-tos -n
certbot renew --dry-run

Step 6: Create the owner account

Open https://surveys.example.com and register with a strong password. The first account owns the first organization; complete onboarding to create a project. Once your team has joined, close public registration by adding SIGNUP_DISABLED=1 to /opt/formbricks/.env and run cd /opt/formbricks && docker compose up -d. Invitations through Organization settings > Members require SMTP.

Backups and restore

Back up the PostgreSQL database, uploads and .env (including ENCRYPTION_KEY). Create /usr/local/bin/formbricks-backup:

shell

#!/bin/bash
set -euo pipefail
DEST=/var/backups/formbricks
STAMP=$(date +%F-%H%M)
mkdir -p "$DEST"
cd /opt/formbricks
docker compose exec -T postgres pg_dump -U formbricks formbricks | gzip > "$DEST/db-$STAMP.sql.gz"
docker run --rm -v formbricks_uploads:/data -v "$DEST":/backup alpine \
  tar czf "/backup/uploads-$STAMP.tar.gz" -C /data .
cp .env "$DEST/env-$STAMP"
chmod 600 "$DEST"/*
find "$DEST" -type f -mtime +14 -delete

shell

chmod 700 /usr/local/bin/formbricks-backup
/usr/local/bin/formbricks-backup && ls -lh /var/backups/formbricks
echo '15 3 * * * root /usr/local/bin/formbricks-backup' > /etc/cron.d/formbricks-backup

Copy backups off the VPS. To restore a database dump with the original .env:

shell

cd /opt/formbricks
docker compose stop formbricks
gunzip -c /var/backups/formbricks/db-STAMP.sql.gz | docker compose exec -T postgres psql -U formbricks formbricks
docker compose start formbricks

Restore the matching uploads archive too if recovering the full installation.

Updating Formbricks

Read release notes, take a backup and change FORMBRICKS_VERSION in .env:

shell

/usr/local/bin/formbricks-backup
cd /opt/formbricks
docker compose pull
docker compose up -d
docker compose logs -f formbricks
docker image prune -f

Migrations run on startup. Keep the OS patched with apt update && apt -y upgrade.

Troubleshooting

Symptom	Check
502 Bad Gateway	Run `docker compose ps` and `docker compose logs formbricks`.
Database errors on restart	Check the database health and that `POSTGRES_PASSWORD` has not changed since volume creation.
Exit 137	Increase memory or add swap.
Login redirects to localhost	Set both `WEBAPP_URL` and `NEXTAUTH_URL` to your HTTPS domain, then recreate the app.
Certificate challenge fails	Check DNS, port 80, UFW and Nginx.
Survey uploads fail	Check `client_max_body_size` and the uploads volume or S3 settings.
Invitations or resets do not send	Configure SMTP, remove the `_DISABLED` settings and recreate the app.