A server with Docker
A €5-a-month VPS is enough to start. Docker and Docker Compose, nothing else installed by hand.
Self-hosting
It needs a server. Here is the whole truth.
WooCommerce installs in five minutes on any shared hosting because PHP is already running there. This is not that, and no amount of good documentation changes it. What we can promise is that from a machine with Docker it is one command and a wizard that does not lie to you.
What you need
Required Required PostgreSQL 16 with pgvector
Comes up inside the compose file. The vector extension is what makes natural-language search work; without it, search still runs on keywords.
Optional A domain and a certificate
Only when you go live. To try it, everything answers on localhost with no configuration at all.
Shared hosting will not work
Not cPanel, not Plesk, not a folder uploaded over FTP. This runs as a long-lived process against its own database, and typical shared hosting offers neither. If that is what you have, WooCommerce or PrestaShop are the honest answer.
One command.
It brings up the database, the commerce backend, the admin panel, the seller panel and the storefront. The programs come already built, so nothing is compiled; the first run takes a few minutes to download the server's dependencies, and after that it starts in about ten seconds.
To try it there is nothing to edit. To go live you change two things — your domains and your secrets — and both are marked in the file.
docker compose up -d- Storefront
- :3000
- Admin panel
- :7001/admin
- Store API
- :9000
Opening the panel takes you straight into the installer.
Then six steps.
A list of steps rather than a progress bar — when something is involved, you need to see what is left, not how much. If you close the tab it picks up where you left off.
- 01
Checks
What is there and what is missing
Runtime version, database connection, and whether the session secrets are still the example ones. Each failure comes with the button that fixes it, not an error code.
- 02
Database
Creating the tables
The schema is created in seconds — 173 tables — and the log streams live anyway. A blank screen reads as a hang, and people close the tab.
- 03
Your store
Name and basics
Store name, currency, the essentials.
- 04
Administrator
Your account
Creating this account is what closes the installation: from that moment the whole setup route stops answering, so nobody can reinstall your store over the top of it.
- 05
Content
With or without a demo catalogue
A worked example to poke at, or an empty store. Your call.
- 06
Done
First steps
Straight into the panel.
Publishing a theme cannot take the shop down.
Three rules, borrowed from how deployments have worked for twenty years: build somewhere else, check before switching, and never rebuild in order to go back.
01 Built aside
The new version compiles in its own directory. If the build fails, the running shop never notices.
02 Checked, then switched
The new process has to answer on an internal port before anything points at it.
03 Five releases kept
Going back is moving a symlink, not rebuilding. The previous versions are still on disk.
Honest caveat: switching over still drops a few seconds of service, and rolling back is done by hand on the server today. A router in front would make both instant, and it is on the list.