GenesisDB
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PE
Patric EckhartCreator of GenesisDB
December 23, 2025
Self-Hosted GenesisDB
Run your event store anywhere for under €20/month: your servers, your cloud, your rules.

One of the most common questions we hear is: "How much do I need to spend to run GenesisDB self-hosted?" The answer might surprise you. GenesisDB was designed from the ground up to be self-hosted with minimal resource requirements, giving you complete control over your data, your deployment, and your costs without breaking the bank.

Whether you're running a small side project or a production workload, self-hosting GenesisDB is straightforward and resource-efficient.

Under €20/month for everything

With GenesisDB's minimal resource requirements and flexible licensing, you can run a fully-featured, production-ready event store for less than €20 per month.

Why Self-Host?

Self-hosting your event store offers several compelling advantages. Your data never leaves your infrastructure, making compliance with GDPR and other regulations straightforward. You control the hardware, the network, and the security perimeter. And perhaps most importantly for many teams: you control the costs.

Minimal Resource Requirements

GenesisDB is remarkably lightweight. Our Kubernetes manifests specify just 128Mi of memory and 100m CPU as the baseline request. The default persistent volume claim is only 500Mi (but also less). This means you can run GenesisDB on the smallest instances your cloud provider offers.

Resource Baseline

Memory: 128Mi | CPU: 100m | Storage: 500Mi

These are starting points. Scale up based on your event volume and query patterns.

Deployment Options

GenesisDB supports multiple deployment methods to fit your infrastructure preferences.

Docker

The fastest way to get started. A single command spins up a fully functional GenesisDB instance:

docker run -d --name genesisdb \
  -p 8080:8080 \
  -e GENESISDB_AUTH_TOKEN=<secret> \
  -e GENESISDB_TZ=UTC \
  -e GENESISDB_PROMETHEUS_METRICS=true \
  -e GENESISDB_DATA_DIR=/app/data \
  genesisdb/genesisdb:latest

Kubernetes

For production workloads, we provide Kubernetes manifests that include a Secret for credentials, a Service, a PersistentVolumeClaim, and a StatefulSet. Apply the YAML, configure your auth token, and you're running.

Pre-Built Binaries

Prefer to run directly on bare metal or a VM? We offer pre-built binaries for:

  • macOS (Apple Silicon / ARM64)
  • macOS (Intel / AMD64)
  • Linux (AMD64)
  • Linux (ARM64)

Where Can You Run It?

Anywhere you can run Docker or a Linux/macOS binary. Here are some popular options:

AWS

Run on EC2 instances (even t3.micro works for small workloads), ECS, or EKS. Use EBS volumes for persistent storage.

Google Cloud / Azure

GKE, Cloud Run, AKS, or simple VMs. GenesisDB's minimal footprint means even the smallest instance types are sufficient for most workloads.

On-Premises / Home Lab

A Raspberry Pi 4, an old laptop, or your existing server infrastructure. If it runs Docker or Linux, it runs GenesisDB.

What Does It Cost?

GenesisDB offers flexible licensing options for self-hosted deployments:

Community Edition

Free

Forever

  • Unlimited events
  • No license key required
  • Full core engine
  • Community support

Free Tier

€0

per month

  • Up to 10,000 events
  • Unlimited instances
  • Email support
  • All core features

Enterprise

€19.90 *

per month

  • Unlimited events
  • Unlimited instances
  • Priority support
  • All features included

* With annual subscription.

Configuration Essentials

GenesisDB is configured through environment variables, making it easy to manage across different deployment environments:

  • GENESISDB_AUTH_TOKEN Shared secret for API and gRPC authentication
  • GENESISDB_TZ Timezone for operations and logging (e.g., UTC, Europe/Vienna)
  • GENESISDB_PROMETHEUS_METRICS Enable metrics endpoint for monitoring
  • GENESISDB_DATA_DIR Path for event data and indexes
  • GENESISDB_LICENSE Your license key (omit for Community Edition)

Coming Soon: GenesisDB Velora

Not interested in managing infrastructure yourself? In 2026, we're launching GenesisDB Velora, our fully managed platform. Let us handle the servers, scaling, and maintenance while you focus on building your application.

GenesisDB Velora

A fully managed event store platform launching in 2026. Pricing plans will be announced soon. Stay tuned for updates.

Getting Started

Ready to deploy? Here's the quickest path to a running instance:

  1. Choose your deployment method (Docker is fastest for testing)
  2. Set your GENESISDB_AUTH_TOKEN to a secure value
  3. Mount a volume for persistent storage in production
  4. Start sending events to http://localhost:8080

Your data. Your infrastructure. Your event store. Your GenesisDB.

Read the full deployment documentation