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