Why I Moved from Cloudflare to Hetzner VPS with Coolify

Recently, I tried hosting my site on Cloudflare for about a week. Their platform is fast and easy to use, but I quickly realized I wanted a deeper, more hands-on experience with server management and deployment.

Why Move to Hetzner?

Hetzner offers affordable, reliable VPS hosting with full control over the environment. By switching, I can:

Learn more:

Managing my own server gives me valuable experience with Linux, networking, and deployment.

Customize everything: I’m free to install and configure any software I want.

Understand the stack: Running my own VPS helps me see what’s happening under the hood.

Why Use Coolify?

Coolify is an open-source, self-hosted PaaS that makes deploying apps on your own server much easier. It automates builds, SSL, and deployments, so I get a Heroku-like workflow while still learning about the underlying infrastructure.

The Migration

The move was simple:

• I set up a Hetzner VPS and installed Coolify.

• I connected my Git repo and configured my environment.

• Coolify handled the rest—building and deploying my app.

What I’m Hoping to Learn

How to manage and secure a VPS.

How deployments work at a lower level.

How to troubleshoot and optimize my own server.

Conclusion

Cloudflare is great for quick, managed hosting, but moving to Hetzner with Coolify is helping me grow as a developer. If you want to learn more about web infrastructure, I recommend giving this setup a try!