Requirements

Falak has two kinds of machines: one control plane host that runs Falak itself, and any number of servers that run your apps. This page lists what each needs.

Control plane host

	Minimum	Recommended
OS	Ubuntu 22.04 or 24.04, Debian 12	Ubuntu 24.04
CPU architecture	amd64 or arm64
RAM	2 GB (the installer warns below 4 GB)	4 GB; 8 GB with --observability
Disk	10 GB free	25 GB or more (images, build artifacts, backups)
Network	Public IPv4 (or IPv6); ports 80 and 443 free and reachable from the internet
DNS	Records for the panel and its agents. host	Also grafana. with --observability
Other	Root access. The installer installs Docker Engine and the Compose plugin if missing.

The host runs only Falak. Do not use it as an app server.

DNS records

Replace the example IP with your host’s public address:

Name	Type	Value	Needed for
falak.example.com	A and/or AAAA	203.0.113.10	Panel, installer script, agent enrollment
agents.falak.example.com	A and/or AAAA	203.0.113.10	Agent API (mutual TLS)
grafana.falak.example.com	A and/or AAAA	203.0.113.10	Only with --observability

Behind Cloudflare, all three must be DNS only. See DNS for the control plane.

Memory budget

Container memory limits are caps, not reservations. Idle usage was measured with three servers enrolled and one site deployed.

Service	Limit	Idle
control-plane (panel and REST API)	512 MB	130–150 MB
agent-api (agents, installer, builders)	512 MB	70–100 MB
horizon (queue workers)	512 MB	130–150 MB
reverb (websockets)	192 MB	50 MB
scheduler	256 MB	45 MB
postgres 17	512 MB	40–150 MB
valkey	192 MB	15 MB
edge (Caddy)	128 MB	25–35 MB
builder	1.5 GB	10–120 MB (builds use up to about 1 GB)
Core total	≈ 4.3 GB	≈ 0.6–0.8 GB
Observability (gateway, Loki, Tempo, VictoriaMetrics, Grafana)	64 + 384 + 384 + 384 + 512 MB	≈ 0.6 GB

Managed servers

	Requirement
OS	Ubuntu LTS, fresh install. Ubuntu 24.04 is the tested target; the installer warns on anything that is not Ubuntu.
CPU architecture	amd64 (x86_64) or arm64 (aarch64)
Init system	systemd (required)
Access	Root, or a user with sudo, to run the one-line install command
Tools	curl or wget
Outbound network	HTTPS to your panel (https://falak.example.com, publicly trusted certificate) and to https://agents.falak.example.com (Falak’s own CA). HTTPS to GitHub, nodejs.org and apt mirrors during provisioning, unless you set download mirrors.
Inbound network	SSH, plus 80/443 on servers that serve HTTP (app, web and load balancer types). The agent needs no inbound port.
RAM	1 GB works for small apps. Falak adds a 2 GB swap file below 2 GB RAM and a 4 GB swap file below 8 GB. On-server builds (not available yet) would need 2 GB.

Caution

Use a fresh machine. Provisioning manages the firewall (nftables, default drop), SSH configuration (PasswordAuthentication no), the hostname, the timezone and swap. Existing web servers on ports 80/443 conflict with Caddy.

Your apps

Stack	What Falak needs from your repository
Laravel, Symfony, Statamic, PHP	A composer.json. A package.json with a build script if you compile assets.
Node.js, Next.js, Nuxt	A package.json with a start script that listens on $PORT.
Bun	A package.json (Bun is chosen when bun.lock/bun.lockb exists or packageManager says bun) with a start script.
Deno	A deno.json or deno.jsonc with a start task.
Static	An index.html, or a Vite/Astro/Create React App build without a start script.
Docker	A public image, or a Dockerfile plus a builder server with Docker. The container must listen on $PORT.
Docker Compose	A compose.yaml (repository) or pasted inline.

Your computer

• A modern browser. The UI uses WebSockets (wss://falak.example.com/app/…).
• Optional: the falak CLI for macOS or Linux (amd64 or arm64).

Next steps

QuickstartInstall and deploy in about ten minutes.

Production installEvery installer flag and what it does.