Our first Coolify build on a 1 GB droplet peaked at 720 MB of RAM plus 669 MB of swap. Idle, Coolify itself used 252 MB across six containers. The builds are what need the memory.
The checklist
- Check what you have:
free -m. If the Swap line says 0, add it before deploying anything. - Add a 2 GB swap file:
fallocate -l 2G /swapfile && chmod 600 /swapfile && mkswap /swapfile && swapon /swapfile
echo '/swapfile none swap sw 0 0' >> /etc/fstab- Check again:
free -mshould show about 2 GB of swap. - Prefer building somewhere else (a CI build or a pre-built image) if the server will run several apps.
The full test
- Can Coolify run on 1 GB of RAM? The docs versus what we measured
- Deploy Coolify on a $6 VPS in 15 minutes
The starter kit adds the swap file (sized for the machine) along with the rest of the first-hour setup. Pay what you want.