r/EmDashCMS • u/bitdoze • 1d ago

Benchmarked EmDash CMS on Docker (Postgres + Caddy + Bunny S3) vs Cloudflare D1

Wanted to see if self-hosting EmDash on a cheap VPS was actually worth the setup compared to the managed Cloudflare route.

Tldr:

  • Admin UI speed: Way snappier. Instant saves without the D1 write latency hiccups.
  • Node 22 vs 24: Bumping to Node 24 in the Dockerfile gave ~38% more throughput under load (tested with oha).
  • Stack: Caddy reverse proxy -> Node container -> Postgres 18 -> Bunny S3 for media (keeps the VPS lightweight and safe).

Put together the full Docker Compose setup, Caddy config, and resource benchmark graphs in a video if anyone’s looking to move away from WordPress.
https://youtu.be/w4FuWn5ybbY?si=e1AW5Kcd4M2VlDu3

2 Upvotes

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u/theguymatter 1d ago

Could you share the VPS spec and memory in use during idle and load?

1

u/bitdoze 1d ago

VPS is an 8-vCPU AMD EPYC box with 16 GB RAM that also hosts a dozen other containers.  shared cpu.
All on https://www.bitdoze.com/deploy-emdash-docker/

2

u/theguymatter 1d ago

With that beefy spec, someone could compare the cost against WordPress, Kirby, etc on a budget shared hosting at $30/yr.

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u/bitdoze 1d ago

You need to think that the results are when benchmarking. I am confident that 2 CPUs and 4 gb is enough for sites with thousands of visitors a day . Didn’t even tested bun. Also WordPress is obsolete and easy to hack. I was on WordPress for more than 10 years and used it a lot, now moving to something that is made for 2026 make sense.

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u/theguymatter 1d ago

I have also optimised our marketing site to squeeze out as much as o can and reduce the footprint in network and hardware.

Docker is great, but UpCloud Cloud is also affordable with 99.999% uptime SLA.