Self-host Firefly III with Docker Compose

Self-hosted personal finance manager to track income, expenses, and budgets.

firefly-iii

postgres

postgres:18.3-alpine3.23

postgres-postgres-data-init

busybox

postgres-postgres-socket-init

busybox

This is still a work in progress.

The generated compose file and instructions may not be complete or correct for every app yet. Please report any issues you encounter to contact@bitflake.com.

The steps below take a few minutes end to end.

Docker compose setup and file
save the generated compose and env files.
Secret generation
create the random passwords Firefly III needs.
Start Firefly III with Docker Compose
bring the stack up and check it's healthy.

Requirements

You'll need these installed on the machine you're deploying to:

Docker

Packages Firefly III and everything it depends on into an isolated container, so it runs the same way on your machine as it does everywhere else.

Install guide

Docker Compose

Reads docker-compose.ymland starts everything in it together. Ships with Docker Desktop. On Linux servers it's usually a separate install.

Install guide

1. Docker compose setup and file

Create a folder for Firefly III and save the file below into it as docker-compose.yml. It describes every container the stack needs — Firefly IIIitself and any supporting services, such as its database — along with the ports, volumes and environment variables each one uses. You'll also need an empty .env file in the same folder; Docker Compose reads it automatically and uses it to fill in the ${VARIABLE}references you'll see in the file below.

docker-compose.yml

version: "3.9"
services:
  firefly-iii:
    image: fireflyiii/core:latest
    restart: unless-stopped
    ports:
      - 8080:8080
    environment:
      APP_ENV: production
      APP_KEY: base64:${RANDOM_APP_KEY_RAW}
      APP_KEY_RAW: ${RANDOM_APP_KEY_RAW}
      APP_URL: http://localhost
      DB_CONNECTION: pgsql
      DB_DATABASE: app
      DB_HOST: localhost
      DB_PASSWORD: ${RANDOM_PG_PASSWORD}
      DB_PORT: "5432"
      DB_USERNAME: app
      TRUSTED_PROXIES: '**'
    volumes:
      - upload:/var/www/html/storage/upload
      - storage:/var/www/html/storage
      - run:/run
      - nginx-log:/var/log/nginx
      - nginx-cache:/var/cache/nginx
      - nginx-config:/etc/nginx
    healthcheck:
      test:
        - CMD
        - curl
        - -f
        - http://localhost:8080/login
      interval: 10s
      timeout: 5s
      retries: 5
  postgres:
    image: postgres:18.3-alpine3.23
    restart: unless-stopped
    network_mode: service:firefly-iii
    environment:
      PGDATA: /var/lib/postgresql/data
      POSTGRES_PASSWORD: ${RANDOM_PG_PASSWORD}
      POSTGRES_USER: app
    volumes:
      - postgres-data:/var/lib/postgresql/data
      - postgres-socket:/var/run/postgresql
    depends_on:
      postgres-postgres-data-init:
        condition: service_completed_successfully
      postgres-postgres-socket-init:
        condition: service_completed_successfully
  postgres-postgres-data-init:
    image: busybox
    volumes:
      - postgres-data:/var/lib/postgresql/data
    command:
      - chown
      - 70:70
      - /var/lib/postgresql/data
  postgres-postgres-socket-init:
    image: busybox
    volumes:
      - postgres-socket:/var/run/postgresql
    command:
      - chown
      - 70:70
      - /var/run/postgresql
volumes:
  nginx-cache: null
  nginx-config: null
  nginx-log: null
  postgres-data: null
  postgres-socket: null
  run: null
  storage: null
  upload: null

Volumes

Firefly III stores its data in named Docker volumes, so it survives container restarts and updates:

upload mounted at /var/www/html/storage/upload: Firefly III's user uploads: the file attachments users add to transactions and other records.
storage mounted at /var/www/html/storage: Firefly III's runtime storage: application logs, framework cache/session/view files, and the generated Passport OAuth signing keypair, all written into the tree the image ships here.
run mounted at /run: Runtime state (process-manager sockets and pid files) the app writes on startup.
nginx-log mounted at /var/log/nginx: Nginx's access and error logs, which it opens for writing on startup.
nginx-cache mounted at /var/cache/nginx: Nginx's temporary caches (client_temp, proxy_temp, and similar), which it creates while serving requests.
nginx-config mounted at /etc/nginx: Nginx configuration, which Firefly III regenerates from its bundled .template sources inside this directory on each start.

2. Secret generation

Firefly III needs a few randomly generated secrets — for example, database passwords or an internal session key — before it can start. These are referenced from docker-compose.ymlabove but don't live in it, so they need to end up in your .env file. Pick one of the two options below.

Generating secrets…

3. Start Firefly III with Docker Compose

From the folder with docker-compose.yml and .env, run:

Terminal

Start Firefly III and all its supporting services in the background.

docker compose up -d

The -d flag runs the stack in the background so it keeps running after you close the terminal. Docker will pull the images the first time, which can take a minute or two.

To check on it afterwards: docker compose ps shows whether containers are healthy, and docker compose logs -f follows their logs if something looks wrong. Once it's running, open http://localhost:8080 in your browser.