HestiaCP Hosting on Your Own VPS
An open-source panel covering web, mail, DNS and databases, with no licence fee.
Size a server for HestiaCP
Every stop is a real configuration you can deploy. Priced per month and billed monthly, exclusive of 18% GST.
What HestiaCP is
HestiaCP is an open-source control panel descended from VestaCP, actively maintained and licensed GPL. It covers the full hosting stack in one interface: web, mail, DNS, databases, cron and certificates.
The mail server is the part worth singling out. Many free panels either omit mail or bolt on something fragile; Hestia ships Exim and Dovecot properly configured with DKIM, SPF and spam filtering out of the box. If you want to run your own mail rather than pay per mailbox, this is one of the shortest routes to a working setup.
Being GPL rather than free-tier matters if you care about the difference. There is no paid edition holding features back and no vendor who can change the terms — the source is the product.
“Fast, reliable, open-source. The control panel you've always wanted is just a command away.”
Why run HestiaCP on a VPS
Genuinely open source, GPL licensed, with no paid tier withholding features.
A working mail server without assembling Exim, Dovecot, DKIM and spam filtering yourself.
Root access, so anything the panel does not cover is still yours to configure.
A clean OS image to install onto, which is what it expects.
HestiaCP features
Web hosting with NGINX and Apache, and multiple PHP versions
Mail with Exim, Dovecot, DKIM, SPF and spam filtering
Authoritative DNS with templates
MySQL and PostgreSQL administration
Free Let's Encrypt certificates with renewal
Per-user resource quotas and packages
Backups with configurable retention
HestiaCP hosting requirements
The recommended starting point for HestiaCP, not a hard floor — size it on the sliders.
| Memory | 4 GB — the mail stack and spam filtering are what push this up |
|---|---|
| CPU | 2 vCPU |
| Storage | 40 GB; mailboxes grow steadily and quietly |
| Operating system | A clean Ubuntu 22.04 or Debian 12 image |
| Installs on | Ubuntu 24.04 LTS, Ubuntu 22.04 LTS, Debian 13 (Trixie), Debian 12 Bookworm |
| Ready in | About 20 minutes |
| Smallest server | 2 vCPU · 4 GB memory · 20 GB disk |
How deployment works
HestiaCP installs onto a clean OS image and configures web, mail, DNS and database services itself. If you intend to send mail, set reverse DNS for the server address and publish SPF, DKIM and DMARC records — without those, delivery to major providers will be poor no matter how well the server is configured.
What people run it for
Self-hosted mail
Your own mail server on your own domain, rather than per-mailbox pricing.
A full hosting stack
Web, mail and DNS in one panel instead of three services.
Reselling
User packages with quotas, for hosting other people's sites.
Leaving a licensed panel
A comparable feature set with no renewing fee.
HestiaCP hosting questions
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Root access, your choice of size, and no container between you and the application.