Guide · Host your website yourself
Host your website yourself: VPS, domain & HTTPS — what you do and why
Your own server for a few euros a month, your domain pointing at it, plus HTTPS with the lock icon. This guide walks you through step by step — and explains at every step why it's needed.
Last updated: 14 August 2026
Step 1
What is a VPS — and why your own server?
For people to see your website on the internet, it has to live on a computer that runs around the clock. You rent that space. There are three typical routes:
Shared hosting
You share one server with many others. Cheap and simple — but you can only do what the provider allows. Installing your own programs? Usually not.
VPS
A virtual server of your own: you get an isolated area with full access — for roughly €4–8 a month. The sweet spot between freedom and effort.
Big cloud
Maximally flexible, but complex and with hard-to-predict costs. Completely oversized for a start.
Why your own server? Because it keeps you in control: your data lives on your server, in a location of your choice, under your rules — you don't depend on the goodwill of a website-builder company. And along the way you learn how the internet actually works. That knowledge stays with you, wherever your project grows.
Step 2
Rent a VPS
Renting takes only a few minutes. I've hosted with Hostinger for years myself — affordable, fast, with servers in Germany. What you need:
- Plan: the smallest VPS is enough to start — 2 vCPUs and 8 GB of RAM handle a WordPress site easily (with room to grow).
- Operating system: choose Ubuntu 24.04 LTS. LTS means "Long Term Support" — the system gets security updates for five years, so you don't have to rebuild all the time.
- Server location: pick Germany/Europe — short loading times for your visitors and fewer GDPR headaches.
After ordering you receive two things: your server's IP address (e.g. 203.0.113.10) and a root login — "root" is the administrator account that may do everything (which is why you should treat it carefully). You'll use it later to log in to the server via the terminal.
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Affiliate link: if you sign up through this link, I receive a small commission. It doesn't cost you anything extra — and you support my work.
Why not the biggest plan right away? A server can be scaled up later with a few clicks. Starting small saves money — and a freshly launched website needs surprisingly little power.
Why Ubuntu LTS? Ubuntu is the most widely used server system. Almost every guide on the internet (including this one) builds on it — so you'll always find help.
Step 3
DNS: pointing the domain at the server
Important to understand: your domain and your server are two separate things. You rent the domain from a registrar (e.g. also Hostinger), the server from the hosting provider. They're connected via DNS — the "Domain Name System". Think of it as the internet's phone book: people remember names (your-domain.com), computers need numbers (the IP address). DNS translates.
You create two records at your registrar:
- A record
@→ your server IP: "A" stands for address;@means "the domain itself". That's how the internet knows where your-domain.com lives. - CNAME
www→ your-domain.com: a pointer so thatwww.your-domain.comarrives too.
DNS changes aren't visible everywhere immediately: servers around the world cache answers. For how long is controlled by the TTL ("Time to Live") — e.g. 1 hour. This distribution period is called propagation: minutes to hours, depending on the TTL. Here's what that looks like for real:
Why does DNS exist at all? Because nobody wants to type IP addresses. Even more importantly: you can switch servers later without anything changing for your visitors — you simply put the new IP into the phone book, the name stays the same.
Step 4
Web server & HTTPS: one door for everything
Your server often runs more than one program — WordPress, maybe more services later. So that not every service needs its own door to the internet, you put a reverse proxy in front: it accepts all requests from outside and distributes them internally to the right service. One door for everything — and HTTPS is handled right at that door.
A reverse proxy sounds complicated, but it doesn't have to be: the Nginx Proxy Manager (NPM) comes with a browser interface — you click instead of writing configuration files. Here's what that looks like in practice:
And HTTPS? In the same tool, on the SSL tab: one click on "Request a new Certificate" — NPM fetches and installs the certificate from Let's Encrypt fully automatically. Let's Encrypt is a non-profit certificate authority: free, certificates are valid for 90 days and get renewed automatically before they expire.
Why is HTTPS a must today? Three reasons: first, it encrypts the connection — nobody can read along between visitor and server. Second, without HTTPS the browser shows a "Not secure" warning instead of the lock icon — that costs trust. Third, Google prefers encrypted sites in its ranking. With Let's Encrypt it costs nothing — so there's no reason left to go without.
Step 5
Briefly: operations — updates & backups
A server doesn't run itself, but the effort is manageable. Two routines are enough to start with:
- Updates: install system updates regularly (much of it is automatic on Ubuntu). Security holes get closed continuously — but only if the fixes actually arrive.
- Backups the 3-2-1 way: three copies of your data, on two different media, one of them off-site. At least one copy must run automatically — anything manual gets forgotten.
Why not keep backups with the same provider only? A backup on the same server is useless if exactly that server fails. That's why one copy always belongs somewhere else. At "Webseite ohne Stress", for example, a backup runs automatically every morning at 4:23 — you never notice it, and that's exactly how it should be.
Tick it off
Your final checklist
- VPS rented (2 vCPU / 8 GB is enough, Ubuntu 24.04 LTS, location Germany/EU) — IP address and root login at hand.
- DNS set: A record
@→ server IP, CNAMEwww→ domain; propagation waited out (ping shows the new IP). - Reverse proxy running: one door for all services, domain entered and forwarded.
- HTTPS active: Let's Encrypt certificate requested, lock icon visible in the browser, HTTP redirects to HTTPS.
- Operations sorted: updates scheduled, automatic backup set up the 3-2-1 way.
Real-world example
What else can run on a VPS like this
The same technology from this guide — VPS, Docker, reverse proxy, HTTPS — also powers, for example, a child-friendly Minecraft server, complete with admin panel, firewall and memory limits. The matching family guide (written for kids + parents, in German): Build a Minecraft server on lukas-gaming-combocraft.de.
Goes well with this: Set up email with your own domain — four DNS records to your own address
Too much tech? I'll do it for you.
Renting a server, DNS, HTTPS, backups — all of that is already taken care of in my hosting offer. You get a finished, secure website and never have to think about any of it.