Sizing & Costs
Choose server size for QuickStack based on the number of apps, databases, and nodes.
QuickStack runs on hardware you choose, so cost and capacity depend on the server(s) you rent. This page gives practical guidance for a successful setup.
Minimum requirements
A fresh installation needs at least:
- 2 CPU cores
- 4 GB RAM
- 40 GB disk
- A supported OS (Ubuntu 24.04+ or Debian 13+) with a public IPv4 and sudo access
See Installation for the exact steps.
What the platform itself consumes
QuickStack runs as a pod on k3s. The control plane, Traefik, and the internal registry use part of the server's resources before any app runs. On a small node, budget roughly 0.5–1 GB of RAM for the platform itself and leave headroom for build jobs, which are the most resource-hungry operation.
Planning by workload
Use these rules of thumb, then verify with Cluster Monitoring:
| Situation | Guidance |
|---|---|
| A few small apps (static sites, APIs) | 2 vCPU / 4 GB is a fine start |
| Several apps plus databases | 4 vCPU / 8 GB gives comfortable headroom |
| Build-heavy Git workloads | More CPU helps; raise Max Parallel Builds only after adding resources. See Build Container Settings |
| Databases with real data | Add RAM for the database engine cache, and reserve storage generously |
| Many concurrent users | Add worker nodes and set reservations |
Builds are the peak load A Git build spawns a build container that can temporarily use significant CPU and memory. On small servers, keep Max Parallel Builds low so builds do not starve running apps.
Storage
- Application data lives in volumes. Volume size is set when the volume is created and can only be increased, so start with room to grow.
- Single-node installs use the
local-pathstorage class, which is fast but not replicated. - Multi-node installs use Longhorn, which replicates data across nodes. Plan for the replication factor when sizing disks.
- Keep disk usage below ~80%; above 90% deployments and backups can fail. See Cluster Monitoring.
High availability
- Use an odd number of control-plane nodes (1, 3, 5) for quorum.
- Use the
longhornstorage class for volumes that must survive a node failure. - Keep 20–30% capacity free for failover. See Cluster Nodes.
Cost
Because QuickStack is free and open source, your cost is the server bill plus any S3 storage for backups. You can start on a small VPS from a provider such as Hetzner, Hostinger, Vultr, Contabo, Linode, or DigitalOcean, and add nodes later without re-architecting.
Predictable by design Unlike usage-based cloud platforms, adding apps does not change your bill. Cost is driven by the servers you rent.