How to install Firefly III on a Cloud VPS

Firefly III is a self-hosted personal finance manager that tracks accounts, budgets, bills and long-term financial goals.

The self-hosted version removes per-user subscriptions: you pay only for the server, no matter how many teammates use the app.

One-click install on cloudlinux.ro

The fastest way: Firefly III installs automatically at the first boot of a new server.

1. Create a Cloud VPS from the control panel.
2. In the configuration step, pick Firefly III from the app catalog.
3. Start the server. The install runs in the background for a few minutes and its status shows on the server page.
4. Access details and generated passwords are saved on the server in /root/app-credentials.txt. The app will be available on port 8080.

Manual install on any Ubuntu server

If you prefer doing it yourself, below is the exact script our automatic install runs. Execute it as root on a fresh Ubuntu server (24.04 recommended). It stops at the first error, and when it finishes you will find the access details in /root/app-credentials.txt.

export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
curl -fsSL https://get.docker.com | sh
DB_PASS=$(openssl rand -base64 24 | tr -dc 'A-Za-z0-9' | cut -c1-20)
APP_KEY=$(openssl rand -base64 32 | tr -dc 'A-Za-z0-9' | cut -c1-32)
IP=$(hostname -I | awk '{print $1}')
docker network create firefly
docker volume create ff_db
docker volume create ff_upload
docker run -d --name ff-db --restart=always --network firefly \
  -e MARIADB_DATABASE=firefly -e MARIADB_USER=firefly -e MARIADB_PASSWORD="$DB_PASS" -e MARIADB_RANDOM_ROOT_PASSWORD=1 \
  -v ff_db:/var/lib/mysql mariadb:11
sleep 15
docker run -d --name firefly --restart=always --network firefly -p 8080:8080 \
  -e APP_KEY="$APP_KEY" -e APP_URL="http://${IP}:8080" -e TZ=Europe/Bucharest \
  -e DB_CONNECTION=mysql -e DB_HOST=ff-db -e DB_PORT=3306 -e DB_DATABASE=firefly -e DB_USERNAME=firefly -e DB_PASSWORD="$DB_PASS" \
  -v ff_upload:/var/www/html/storage/upload fireflyiii/core:latest
printf 'Firefly III: http://%s:8080\nCreeaza contul la prima accesare.\n' "$IP" > /root/app-credentials.txt

You can also save this script as a recipe in your account and reuse it on any new server.