How Zethic Standardised Server Deployments with Coolify

As a project portfolio grows, deployment habits drift apart, which raises operational risk and slows onboarding. Zethic, an AI and Digital Solutions partner, fixed this by moving close to 200 services onto one Coolify deployment process.

What Coolify does

Coolify is an open-source layer on top of Docker that deploys and manages apps on servers you own or rent. Each app runs as a container built from a Git repository. It handles Git-based deployments, automatic SSL certificates, one-click databases with scheduled backups, team roles and a catalogue of ready-made open-source services.

Why the move from Ploi

Ploi worked while the portfolio was small. As it grew, Node.js and PHP projects followed different deployment routes, and that cost coordination time. The team wanted one standard process, less direct server access, a clear record of changes and less repeated setup.

What changed

Area	Earlier setup	With Coolify
Deployment	Steps varied by project	One standard Docker process
Server access	Developers logged in directly	No server access needed
Starting a release	Manual steps on the server	Automatic on push to a branch
Change history	No clear record	Tracked through the repository

How a deployment works

1. Add a Dockerfile, or a Docker Compose file for several services, to the repository.
2. Connect the project to Coolify and pick the server and branch.
3. Push code to that branch.
4. Coolify builds the image and deploys it automatically.
5. The team follows progress in Coolify's logs.

Today this runs roughly 180 to 200 services across around 8 servers. Deployment logs record every release, and team roles limit who can change each project. Standardising like this is now part of how Zethic delivers software engineering services for clients.

Tips for adopting it

• Keep one Dockerfile template per technology
• Start on a development server before production
• Add a health check to every app
• Store passwords and keys in Coolify's environment settings, not the repository
• Size servers for builds, not only the apps

Coolify's documented minimum is 2 CPU cores, 2 GB of RAM and 10 GB of free storage, with Docker and SSH access. The self-hosted version is free, so teams pay only for servers.

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