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Node-RED Hosting on Your Own VPS

Event-driven flows for IoT, MQTT and API glue, on a server with a fixed address.

Deploy Node-RED Recommended specs

Size a server for Node-RED

Every stop is a real configuration you can deploy. Priced per 30 days, billed by the hour, exclusive of 18% GST.

2 vCPU
4 GB
40 GB
5 TB

What Node-RED is

Node-RED is a flow-based programming tool built on Node.js. You wire nodes together on a canvas and messages pass along the connections — a model that fits event-driven work particularly well: an MQTT message arrives, gets transformed, triggers an HTTP call, writes to a database.

Its natural home is IoT and integration. There are nodes for MQTT, Modbus, serial, HTTP, WebSockets and most databases, and the community library adds thousands more. It is the quickest way to get sensors, brokers and APIs talking to each other without writing a service for each pairing.

Running it on a VPS rather than a Raspberry Pi on your desk changes two things that matter: it has a static public address, so webhooks and devices on other networks can reach it; and it stays up when the office loses power.

Why run Node-RED on a VPS

A static public address, so devices and webhooks can reach the flows reliably.

Uptime independent of your own premises.

Root access to install native modules that some nodes require.

A private network for devices that should not be publicly reachable.

Node-RED features

Flow editor with a large node library

MQTT, HTTP, WebSocket, TCP and serial nodes

A dashboard for gauges and controls

Function nodes for JavaScript where no node fits

Context storage that survives restarts

Projects with Git-backed version control

Recommended server

A starting point for Node-RED, not a hard floor — size it on the sliders.

Memory2 GB for typical flows; 4 GB with a broker and a database beside it
CPU2 vCPU
Storage40 GB; time-series data is what grows, not the flows
Operating systemUbuntu 22.04 LTS or Debian 12

How deployment works

Node-RED is installed with Node.js and run under a process supervisor so it restarts cleanly. The editor is put behind authentication and TLS — an open Node-RED editor is remote code execution, since function nodes run arbitrary JavaScript. An MQTT broker can be installed alongside it if devices need one.

It is your server. Node-RED is installed directly on your VPS or VDS, not inside a container we manage. You get root over SSH, you can install anything alongside it, change its configuration, or remove it entirely. We do not hold a key to it.

What people run it for

IoT collection

Sensors publishing to MQTT, transformed and stored centrally.

Home and building automation

Rules and schedules that keep running when the local network does not.

API glue

Bridging services that have no native integration, event by event.

Dashboards

A live view of device state without building a front end.

Node-RED hosting questions

A VPS running Node-RED, with your flows, credentials and context stored on a server you control and reachable at a fixed address.

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Deploy Node-RED on your own server

Root access, your choice of size, and no container between you and the application.

Deploy Node-RED All applications