Why run a trading bot on a VPS
A bot that only runs when your laptop is open isn’t a bot — it’s a script. Markets move at 3 a.m., your Wi-Fi drops, your OS updates and reboots. A VPS gives your strategy a stable, always-on home with a fixed IP, independent of your personal machine and network.
There’s a privacy angle too. Your exchange API keys are the crown jewels of an automated account. Keeping them on a dedicated server — not the laptop you carry through airports and coffee shops — shrinks the blast radius if a device is lost or compromised. And because the host is no-KYC and paid in crypto, renting the machine doesn’t create another identity record.
Deploy Freqtrade in about five minutes
The commands below stand up Freqtrade in Docker on a fresh Ubuntu server. They’re illustrative — read Freqtrade’s own docs before trading real funds.
# on a fresh VPS (Ubuntu 24.04)
sudo apt update && sudo apt install -y docker.io docker-compose-v2 git
git clone https://github.com/freqtrade/freqtrade
cd freqtrade
# fetch the stable docker image and scaffold a user_data dir
docker compose pull
docker compose run --rm freqtrade create-userdir --userdir user_data
# add your config + strategy under user_data/, then:
docker compose up -d
docker compose logs -fCreate your exchange API keys with trading enabled, withdrawals disabled, and
lock them to the VPS IP. Store them in user_data/config.json with chmod 600,
never in your shell history.
Sizing and snapshots
One or two strategies with a SQLite or Postgres database fit comfortably on a 2 vCPU / 4 GB plan. Heavy backtesting or dozens of pairs want more RAM — the Pro tier. Take a snapshot before you change a live strategy so a bad parameter is a 10-second rollback, not a bad night.
What this page is and isn’t
This is a page about hosting a bot you already trust. It is not trading advice and not a promise your strategy will make money. We rent you a reliable, private server; the strategy is yours.