DigitalOcean Deployment

Deploy Chatwoot on DigitalOcean’s cloud infrastructure with multiple deployment options ranging from one-click apps to fully customized Kubernetes clusters.

Deployment Options

Option 1: One-Click Droplet (Recommended)

Fastest way to get Chatwoot running on DigitalOcean.

Option 2: Manual Droplet Setup

Full control over Ubuntu Droplet configuration.

Option 3: DigitalOcean App Platform

Fully managed platform-as-a-service deployment.

Option 4: Kubernetes (DOKS)

Scalable, production-ready Kubernetes deployment.

Option 1: One-Click Droplet

1. Create Droplet

Log in to DigitalOcean
Click Create → Droplets
Choose Marketplace tab
Search for “Chatwoot” and select the image

If Chatwoot isn’t in the Marketplace, use the manual Ubuntu installation method below.

2. Configure Droplet

Plan: Basic
CPU: Regular (2 GB / 1 CPU minimum)
Region: Choose closest to your users
Authentication: SSH keys (recommended) or password
Hostname: chatwoot-production

3. Create & Access

Click Create Droplet and wait for provisioning (1-2 minutes). SSH into your droplet:

ssh root@your_droplet_ip

4. Complete Setup

Follow the on-screen instructions to configure:

Domain name
SSL certificate
Admin email

Option 2: Manual Droplet Setup

Complete control with Ubuntu and the Chatwoot installation script.

1. Create Ubuntu Droplet

Create a new Droplet:

Image: Ubuntu 22.04 LTS x64
Plan:
- Basic: $24/month (2 GB RAM, 2 vCPUs, 60 GB SSD)
- Production: $48/month (4 GB RAM, 2 vCPUs, 80 GB SSD)
Datacenter: Choose your region
Authentication: Add SSH key
Hostname: chatwoot-production

2. SSH Into Droplet

ssh root@your_droplet_ip

3. Update System

apt update && apt upgrade -y

4. Install Chatwoot

Use the official installation script:

wget https://get.chatwoot.app/linux/install.sh
chmod +x install.sh
./install.sh --install

5. Configure Domain (Optional)

When prompted:

Enter your domain: chat.yourdomain.com
Enter email for SSL certificate
Confirm DNS is pointed to droplet IP

The script will:

Install Nginx
Configure SSL via Let’s Encrypt
Set up automatic renewal

6. Access Chatwoot

Once installation completes, access:

http://your_droplet_ip:3000
# or
https://chat.yourdomain.com

Create your admin account.

Option 3: DigitalOcean App Platform

Deploy Chatwoot as a managed application.

Prerequisites

GitHub account
Fork the Chatwoot repository

1. Fork Repository

# Visit https://github.com/chatwoot/chatwoot
# Click "Fork" button

2. Create App

Go to App Platform
Click Create App
Choose GitHub as source
Select your forked chatwoot repository
Select branch: master
Autodeploy: Enable

3. Configure Resources

Web Service

Name: chatwoot-web
Environment:
- Type: Web Service
- Build Command: bundle install && pnpm install && rake assets:precompile
- Run Command: bin/rails server -p $PORT -e $RAILS_ENV
Instance Size: Professional (2 GB RAM, 1 vCPU) - $24/month
Instance Count: 1

Worker Service

Name: chatwoot-worker
Environment:
- Type: Worker
- Run Command: bundle exec sidekiq -C config/sidekiq.yml
Instance Size: Professional (2 GB RAM, 1 vCPU) - $24/month
Instance Count: 1

4. Add Databases

Click Add Resource → Database

PostgreSQL

Engine: PostgreSQL 16
Plan: Basic - $15/month (1 GB RAM, 10 GB disk)
Note: Requires manual pgvector extension setup

Redis

Engine: Redis 7
Plan: Basic - $15/month (1 GB RAM)

5. Environment Variables

Add required environment variables:

SECRET_KEY_BASE=${generate_with: openssl rand -hex 64}
RAILS_ENV=production
NODE_ENV=production
FRONTEND_URL=${APP_URL}
RAILS_LOG_TO_STDOUT=enabled
RAILS_SERVE_STATIC_FILES=true

# Database (auto-configured by App Platform)
DATABASE_URL=${chatwoot-db.DATABASE_URL}
REDIS_URL=${chatwoot-redis.REDIS_URL}

# Email (configure your SMTP)
MAILER_SENDER_EMAIL=Chatwoot <[email protected]>
SMTP_ADDRESS=smtp.sendgrid.net
SMTP_PORT=587
SMTP_USERNAME=apikey
SMTP_PASSWORD=${YOUR_SENDGRID_API_KEY}
SMTP_AUTHENTICATION=plain
SMTP_ENABLE_STARTTLS_AUTO=true

# Storage (use Spaces)
ACTIVE_STORAGE_SERVICE=amazon
S3_BUCKET_NAME=${YOUR_SPACE_NAME}
AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID=${SPACES_KEY}
AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY=${SPACES_SECRET}
AWS_REGION=nyc3
AWS_ENDPOINT=https://nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com

6. Configure pgvector

After database is created:

# Get database connection string from App Platform console
psql "postgresql://user:pass@host:port/db?sslmode=require"

# In psql, run:
CREATE EXTENSION IF NOT EXISTS vector;

7. Deploy

Click Create Resources to start deployment (10-15 minutes).

8. Run Migrations

After deployment, access the web service console:

bundle exec rails db:chatwoot_prepare

9. Configure Custom Domain

Go to Settings → Domains
Add domain: chat.yourdomain.com

Update DNS:

Type:  CNAME
Name:  chat
Value: your-app.ondigitalocean.app

Update FRONTEND_URL to match custom domain

DigitalOcean Spaces for Storage

1. Create Space

Go to Spaces in DigitalOcean
Click Create Space
Choose region
Name: chatwoot-uploads
Set File Listing: Private

2. Configure CORS

In Space settings, add CORS rule:

[
  {
    "AllowedOrigins": ["https://your-domain.com"],
    "AllowedMethods": ["GET", "PUT", "POST", "DELETE", "HEAD"],
    "AllowedHeaders": ["*"],
    "MaxAgeSeconds": 3600
  }
]

3. Generate API Keys

Click API in sidebar
Spaces Keys → Generate New Key
Save Access Key and Secret Key

4. Configure Chatwoot

# Update environment variables
heroku config:set ACTIVE_STORAGE_SERVICE=amazon
heroku config:set S3_BUCKET_NAME=chatwoot-uploads
heroku config:set AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID=your-spaces-key
heroku config:set AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY=your-spaces-secret
heroku config:set AWS_REGION=nyc3
heroku config:set AWS_ENDPOINT=https://nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com

Managed Database Configuration

Create Managed Databases

PostgreSQL

# Create cluster
doctl databases create chatwoot-pg \
  --engine pg \
  --version 16 \
  --size db-s-2vcpu-4gb \
  --region nyc3

# Enable pgvector
doctl databases sql chatwoot-pg \
  --execute "CREATE EXTENSION IF NOT EXISTS vector;"

# Get connection details
doctl databases connection chatwoot-pg --format URI

Redis

# Create cluster
doctl databases create chatwoot-redis \
  --engine redis \
  --version 7 \
  --size db-s-1vcpu-1gb \
  --region nyc3

# Get connection details
doctl databases connection chatwoot-redis --format URI

Configure Chatwoot to Use Managed Databases

On your Droplet, edit /home/chatwoot/chatwoot/.env:

# PostgreSQL (replace with your connection string)
POSTGRES_HOST=chatwoot-pg-do-user-123-0.db.ondigitalocean.com
POSTGRES_USERNAME=doadmin
POSTGRES_PASSWORD=your-password
POSTGRES_DATABASE=defaultdb
POSTGRES_PORT=25060

# Redis (replace with your connection string)
REDIS_URL=rediss://default:[email protected]:25061

Restart Chatwoot:

cwctl --restart

Monitoring & Backups

Enable Droplet Monitoring

Go to Droplet page
Click Monitoring tab
View CPU, memory, disk, and bandwidth usage

Set Up Alerts

Click Create Alert Policy
Configure thresholds:
- CPU usage > 80%
- Memory usage > 90%
- Disk usage > 80%

Database Backups

Managed databases have automatic backups:

# List backups
doctl databases backups list chatwoot-pg

# Restore from backup
doctl databases restore chatwoot-pg <backup-id>

Droplet Snapshots

Create manual snapshots:

Power off Droplet (recommended)
Click Snapshots tab
Click Take Snapshot
Wait for completion

Restore from snapshot:

Go to Images → Snapshots
Click More → Create Droplet

Scaling on DigitalOcean

Vertical Scaling (Resize Droplet)

Power off Droplet
Click Resize
Choose new plan
Click Resize Droplet
Power on after resize

Horizontal Scaling (Load Balancer)

1. Create Load Balancer

doctl compute load-balancer create \
  --name chatwoot-lb \
  --region nyc3 \
  --forwarding-rules "entry_protocol:https,entry_port:443,target_protocol:http,target_port:3000,tls_passthrough:false" \
  --health-check "protocol:http,port:3000,path:/api,check_interval_seconds:10,response_timeout_seconds:5,healthy_threshold:5,unhealthy_threshold:3"

2. Create Web-Only Droplets

Create multiple droplets using web-only deployment:

# On each droplet
wget https://get.chatwoot.app/linux/install.sh
chmod +x install.sh
./install.sh --install --web-only

3. Add Droplets to Load Balancer

doctl compute load-balancer add-droplets <lb-id> \
  --droplet-ids <droplet-id-1>,<droplet-id-2>

4. Create Worker Droplet

# On worker droplet
./install.sh --install --worker-only

Cost Estimation

Small Deployment (10-50 users)

Droplet (Basic): $24/month
Total: $24/month

Medium Deployment (50-200 users)

Droplet (4 GB): $48/month
Managed PostgreSQL: $15/month
Managed Redis: $15/month
Spaces: $5/month
Total: $83/month

Large Deployment (200+ users)

Load Balancer: $12/month
Droplets (2×4GB web): $96/month
Droplet (4GB worker): $48/month
Managed PostgreSQL: $60/month
Managed Redis: $15/month
Spaces: $5/month
Total: $236/month

Troubleshooting

Connection Timeout

Check firewall:

# View firewall rules
ufw status

# Allow HTTP/HTTPS
ufw allow 80/tcp
ufw allow 443/tcp

Out of Memory

Resize Droplet or add swap:

# Create 2GB swap
fallocate -l 2G /swapfile
chmod 600 /swapfile
mkswap /swapfile
swapon /swapfile
echo '/swapfile none swap sw 0 0' >> /etc/fstab

SSL Certificate Issues

Renew Let’s Encrypt certificate:

sudo certbot renew --dry-run
sudo certbot renew
sudo systemctl reload nginx

Deployment

Configuration

Operations

​DigitalOcean Deployment

​Deployment Options

​Option 1: One-Click Droplet (Recommended)

​Option 2: Manual Droplet Setup

​Option 3: DigitalOcean App Platform

​Option 4: Kubernetes (DOKS)

​Option 1: One-Click Droplet

​1. Create Droplet

​2. Configure Droplet

​3. Create & Access

​4. Complete Setup

​Option 2: Manual Droplet Setup

​1. Create Ubuntu Droplet

​2. SSH Into Droplet

​3. Update System

​4. Install Chatwoot

​5. Configure Domain (Optional)

​6. Access Chatwoot

​Option 3: DigitalOcean App Platform

​Prerequisites

​1. Fork Repository

​2. Create App

​3. Configure Resources

​Web Service

​Worker Service

​4. Add Databases

​PostgreSQL

​Redis

​5. Environment Variables

​6. Configure pgvector

​7. Deploy

​8. Run Migrations

​9. Configure Custom Domain

​DigitalOcean Spaces for Storage

​1. Create Space

​2. Configure CORS

​3. Generate API Keys

​4. Configure Chatwoot

​Managed Database Configuration

​Create Managed Databases

​PostgreSQL

​Redis

​Configure Chatwoot to Use Managed Databases

​Monitoring & Backups

​Enable Droplet Monitoring

​Set Up Alerts

​Database Backups

​Droplet Snapshots

​Scaling on DigitalOcean

​Vertical Scaling (Resize Droplet)

​Horizontal Scaling (Load Balancer)

​1. Create Load Balancer

​2. Create Web-Only Droplets

​3. Add Droplets to Load Balancer

​4. Create Worker Droplet

​Cost Estimation

​Small Deployment (10-50 users)

​Medium Deployment (50-200 users)

​Large Deployment (200+ users)

​Troubleshooting

​Connection Timeout

​Out of Memory

​SSL Certificate Issues

​Next Steps

Build docs developers (and LLMs) love

DigitalOcean Deployment

Deployment Options

Option 1: One-Click Droplet (Recommended)

Option 2: Manual Droplet Setup

Option 3: DigitalOcean App Platform

Option 4: Kubernetes (DOKS)

Option 1: One-Click Droplet

1. Create Droplet

2. Configure Droplet

3. Create & Access

4. Complete Setup

Option 2: Manual Droplet Setup

1. Create Ubuntu Droplet

2. SSH Into Droplet

3. Update System

4. Install Chatwoot

5. Configure Domain (Optional)

6. Access Chatwoot

Option 3: DigitalOcean App Platform

Prerequisites

1. Fork Repository

2. Create App

3. Configure Resources

Web Service

Worker Service

4. Add Databases

PostgreSQL

Redis

5. Environment Variables

6. Configure pgvector

7. Deploy

8. Run Migrations

9. Configure Custom Domain

DigitalOcean Spaces for Storage

1. Create Space

2. Configure CORS

3. Generate API Keys

4. Configure Chatwoot

Managed Database Configuration

Create Managed Databases

PostgreSQL

Redis

Configure Chatwoot to Use Managed Databases

Monitoring & Backups

Enable Droplet Monitoring

Set Up Alerts

Database Backups

Droplet Snapshots

Scaling on DigitalOcean

Vertical Scaling (Resize Droplet)

Horizontal Scaling (Load Balancer)

1. Create Load Balancer

2. Create Web-Only Droplets

3. Add Droplets to Load Balancer

4. Create Worker Droplet

Cost Estimation

Small Deployment (10-50 users)

Medium Deployment (50-200 users)

Large Deployment (200+ users)

Troubleshooting

Connection Timeout

Out of Memory

SSL Certificate Issues

Next Steps