Launchfile vs Self-Hosting
The real cost of running your own stack
Self-hosting open-source apps is free in the sense that you don't pay for the software. But you pay in time.
What you spend time on when you self-host
Initial setup: Reading docs, figuring out which environment variables are required versus optional, debugging why the app can't reach its database, configuring reverse proxies, setting up SSL. For a single app this takes 2-4 hours. For a stack of five apps, multiply accordingly.
Ongoing maintenance: Apps update. Config requirements change. What worked last month breaks when you upgrade. Debugging a broken Postgres connection at midnight is not a hypothetical.
Coolify specifically: Coolify is excellent software. It's also a self-hosted platform, which means you're now responsible for the ops layer that manages your other ops layers. When Coolify has a problem, you're debugging Coolify first.
What Launchfile costs
$9/month. One command. All 113+ apps with production-tested configuration already applied.
If your time is worth anything above $0/hour, the math is not complicated.
| Self-hosting | Launchfile | |
|---|---|---|
| Initial setup | 2-8 hours per app | One command |
| Database config | Manual, per app | Pre-tuned |
| Service wiring | Manual | Automatic |
| Config maintenance | On you | Included |
| Monthly cost | $0 | $9 |
| Hours at $50/hr to break even | - | 0.18 hrs |
Eleven minutes of your time per month is the break-even point.