Deploying a Next.js App to Hetzner with Docker: Complete Guide

Hetzner offers some of the best price-to-performance ratios for VPS hosting. Here is how we deploy our Next.js app with Docker.

Prerequisites

Hetzner Cloud account with a CX21 or higher VPS

Domain name pointing to your server IP

SSH access to your server

Docker and Docker Compose installed

The Dockerfile

We use a multi-stage build: deps (install node_modules), builder (prisma generate + next build), runner (minimal alpine image). The final image is under 200MB.

Docker Compose

Our docker-compose.yml defines two services: the Next.js app and MySQL 8. MySQL data persists in a named volume. The app waits for MySQL to be healthy before starting.

Environment Variables

Copy .env.production.example to .env.production and fill in: DATABASE_URL (pointing to the MySQL container), Clerk keys, Stripe keys, and your domain.

Deployment Steps

SSH into your Hetzner server

Clone the repository

Copy and fill .env.production

Run docker compose up -d --build

Run docker compose exec app npx prisma db push

Run docker compose exec app npx prisma db seed

SSL with Caddy

We recommend Caddy as a reverse proxy — it handles SSL certificates automatically. A simple Caddyfile: yourdomain.com { reverse_proxy app:3000 }

CI/CD

Our GitHub Actions workflow runs lint and build on PRs, then deploys to Hetzner on push to main via SSH.