3 teams that moved to dokku
3 teams moved to dokku. Most left DigitalOcean (1) or Render (1). The typical team cut 62% of its bill. Each team's old bill, running cost and net saving.
All three stories on this tag are one person's single move. In October 2024 Fran Tufró dropped Netlify, DigitalOcean and Render, which together cost him about $78 a month, and put everything on one Hetzner dedicated server running Dokku, the open-source Heroku-like platform he found while looking for a Render alternative.
The old bills were $19 a month for Netlify, paid only to host static sites from private repositories, $32 for a DigitalOcean server running Sendy and some family WordPress sites that he found underpowered, and $27 for Render, which hosted his Cuentitos Studio app. The Hetzner server costs $30 a month and also runs his personal cloud. Each story carries a share of that bill in proportion to its old bill, about $7, $12 and $10.
That leaves about $48 a month saved across the three, a cut of roughly 62%. That is a modest percentage because the old bills were small and the new server does more than host these three. He expects it to cover his personal projects for years. With one builder and one move, this page says more about consolidation on a cheap dedicated box than about Dokku in general.
Written from these stories, updated Nov 2026. Numbers as each team reported them. How this ledger works
What they left for dokku
Left DigitalOcean1 team · $20/mo saved · cut 62% of the bill
| Team and what they built | Since | Old bill | Running cost | Net saved | Bill cut |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fran TufróDokku on a Hetzner dedicated server · Hetzner Fran Tufró moved Sendy and a few family WordPress sites off an underpowered DigitalOcean server to Dokku on one Hetzner dedicated server, in the same move that replaced his Netlify and Render hosting, which have their own stories. The server also runs his personal cloud, and its cost is shared across the three stories. | Oct 2024 | $32/mo | $12/mo | $20/mo | 62% |
Left Render1 team · $17/mo saved · cut 62% of the bill
| Team and what they built | Since | Old bill | Running cost | Net saved | Bill cut |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cuentitos StudioDokku on a Hetzner dedicated server · Hetzner Fran Tufró moved his Cuentitos Studio app from Render to Dokku on one Hetzner dedicated server, in the same move that replaced his Netlify and DigitalOcean hosting, which have their own stories. The server also runs his personal cloud, and its cost is shared across the three stories. | Oct 2024 | $27/mo | $10/mo | $17/mo | 62% |
Left Netlify1 team · $12/mo saved · cut 62% of the bill
| Team and what they built | Since | Old bill | Running cost | Net saved | Bill cut |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fran TufróDokku on a Hetzner dedicated server · Hetzner Fran Tufró dropped the Netlify plan he paid only to host static sites from private repos and moved them to Dokku on one Hetzner dedicated server, in the same move that replaced his DigitalOcean and Render hosting, which have their own stories. The server also runs his personal cloud, and its cost is shared across the three stories. | Oct 2024 | $19/mo | $7/mo | $12/mo | 62% |