Convex Self Hosting

Convex Self-Hosting

Expert guidance for deploying and managing self-hosted Convex instances.

Quick Start

IMPORTANT CLI LIMITATION: The Convex CLI (npx convex) is designed primarily for Convex Cloud and has limited support for self-hosted backends. Many CLI commands may not work correctly with self-hosted deployments. Environment-based configuration and direct API interaction is often required instead.

# Docker deployment (recommended)
git clone https://github.com/get-convex/convex-backend
cd convex-backend/self-hosted
docker compose up
docker compose exec backend ./generate_admin_key.sh

# Configure environment
export CONVEX_SELF_HOSTED_URL=http://127.0.0.1:3210
export CONVEX_SELF_HOSTED_ADMIN_KEY=<your-key>

# Deploy your functions (may have limited functionality with self-hosted)
npx convex deploy

Core Concepts

What is Self-Hosted Convex?

• Same code as Convex Cloud (open-sourced February 2025)
• Full operational responsibility (scaling, migrations, backups, security)
• Single-node by default (horizontal scaling requires code modifications)
• FSL Apache 2.0 License (converts to standard Apache 2.0 after 4 years)

When to Self-Host

Use self-hosting for:

• Data sovereignty/compliance requirements
• Private network/VPC deployment
• Specific geographic data residency
• Unlimited testing environments
• Integration with existing infrastructure

Use Convex Cloud for:

• Automatic scaling
• Managed migrations
• Professional support
• Reduced operational overhead

Essential Environment Variables

Required

Platform-Specific (PaaS)

Database

Gotcha: Use POSTGRES_URL instead of DATABASE_URL for better compatibility. Remove database name from URL - Convex adds it based on INSTANCE_NAME.

Security

Authentication (@convex-dev/auth)

Critical: The CLI does not support self-hosted deployments for Convex Auth. Manual setup required.

Required Environment Variables

JWT_PRIVATE_KEY

Format: Must be PKCS#8 format (NOT PKCS#1/RSAPrivateKey).

Generate:

openssl genpkey -algorithm RSA -pkeyopt rsa_keygen_bits:2048 -out jwt_private_key.pem

Verify: File should start with -----BEGIN PRIVATE KEY----- (NOT -----BEGIN RSA PRIVATE KEY-----).

JWKS

Purpose: Public key set for verifying JWT signatures.

Required Format:

{
  "keys": [{
    "kty": "RSA",
    "e": "AQAB",
    "n": "...",
    "alg": "RS256",
    "kid": "unique-key-id",
    "use": "sig"
  }]
}

JWT_ISSUER

Purpose: The issuer URL for JWT tokens. Must match your Convex deployment URL.

JWT_ISSUER=https://your-convex-url.com

Common Gotchas

Platform-Specific Deployments

Fly.io

[env]
  CONVEX_CLOUD_ORIGIN = "https://your-app.fly.dev"
  CONVEX_SITE_ORIGIN = "https://your-app.fly.dev"

Railway

One-click deployment with built-in Postgres.

AWS (EC2/SST)

• SST for infrastructure as code
• EC2 for compute
• RDS for database
• S3 for file storage

Coder Workspace

For Coder workspaces, use the automatic port-based DNS routing:

https://<service>--<workspace>--<owner>.coder.<domain>

Note: Replace <workspace>, <owner>, and <domain> with your specific Coder environment values.

Required Services:

Required Environment Variables for Coder:

CONVEX_CLOUD_ORIGIN=https://convex-api--<workspace>--<owner>.coder.<domain>
CONVEX_SITE_ORIGIN=https://convex-site--<workspace>--<owner>.coder.<domain>
JWT_ISSUER=https://convex-site--<workspace>--<owner>.coder.<domain>

JWT Key Handling for Coder:

For proper authentication in Coder workspaces, use a custom entrypoint script that loads the JWT_PRIVATE_KEY from a mounted file:

1. Generate PKCS#8 formatted key:

   openssl genpkey -algorithm RSA -pkeyopt rsa_keygen_bits:2048 -out jwt_private_key.pem
   

2. Create custom entrypoint (convex-backend-entrypoint.sh):

   #!/bin/bash
   set -e
   
   # Load JWT_PRIVATE_KEY from mounted file
   if [ -f /jwt_private_key.pem ]; then
     echo "Loading JWT_PRIVATE_KEY from /jwt_private_key.pem..."
     DECODED_KEY=$(cat /jwt_private_key.pem)
     export JWT_PRIVATE_KEY="$DECODED_KEY"
   fi
   
   # Run Convex backend
   exec env JWT_PRIVATE_KEY="$JWT_PRIVATE_KEY" ./convex-local-backend \
     --instance-name "$INSTANCE_NAME" \
     --instance-secret "$INSTANCE_SECRET" \
     --port 3210 \
     --site-proxy-port 3211 \
     --convex-origin "$CONVEX_CLOUD_ORIGIN" \
     --convex-site "$CONVEX_SITE_ORIGIN" \
     --db postgres-v5 \
     "$POSTGRES_URL"
   

3. Mount in Docker Compose:

   services:
     convex-backend:
       image: ghcr.io/get-convex/convex-backend:latest
       volumes:
         - ./jwt_private_key.pem:/jwt_private_key.pem:ro
         - ./convex-backend-entrypoint.sh:/convex-backend-entrypoint.sh:ro
       entrypoint: ["/bin/bash", "/convex-backend-entrypoint.sh"]
   

For complete Coder workspace setup, see the coder-convex-setup skill.

Production Checklist

Pre-Deployment

• Estimate traffic/load requirements
• Define data retention requirements
• Plan backup strategy
• Choose hosting platform
• Register domain and configure DNS

Infrastructure

• Provision PostgreSQL instance
• Create convex_self_hosted database
• Configure S3 or S3-compatible storage
• Generate secure INSTANCE_SECRET
• Configure reverse proxy with SSL (nginx/Caddy)
• Set up firewall rules
• Configure rate limiting

Security

• Rotate admin keys regularly
• Use different keys for dev/staging/production
• Store secrets in secret management systems
• Disable beacon if required
• Set up monitoring and alerting

Backup/DR

• Set up automated backups
• Configure off-site backup storage
• Test restore procedures
• Document recovery procedures

Reference Documentation

For detailed information on specific topics, see:

• Deployment Methods - Docker, build from source, platform-specific guides
• Authentication Guide - Complete JWT setup, troubleshooting, security best practices
• Environment Variables - Complete reference for all configuration options
• Production Configuration - Security, monitoring, backups, scaling
• Troubleshooting - Common issues and solutions
• Platform Guides - Fly.io, Railway, AWS, Neon, Kubernetes, Coder workspaces

Resources

• Official Self-Hosting Docs
• GitHub Repository
• Self-Hosting Blog
• #self-hosted Discord