This guide takes you from zero to a first production deployment on your own servers. It only requires a Git account and a VPS server (with SSH access).
Prerequisites
- An account on GitHub, GitLab or Bitbucket.
- A VPS server running Ubuntu 20.04 or newer (or any distribution supporting Docker), with an SSH user.
- About 10 minutes.
No server yet? You can create one at any provider (Hetzner, OVH, DigitalOcean, Vultr\u2026). Paylood requires no agent installed on the server: everything goes through SSH + Docker.
1. Create your account
- Open app.paylood.com and click Create account.
- Enter your name, email and a password.
- Enter the OTP code sent to your email address to activate the account.
You can also sign up with Google or log in with GitHub (see Account & login).
2. Connect your Git account
- Go to Settings → Git Accounts.
- Click Connect next to GitHub, GitLab or Bitbucket.
- Authorize Paylood in the window that opens. You are redirected automatically.
Your repositories become available from the dashboard.
3. Add your VPS server
- Open the Servers page in the sidebar.
- Click Connect a VPS.
- Enter the IP address, SSH port (22 by default) and user (
rootor another). - Choose the authentication: password or private key.
- Click Test connection — the SSH steps stream live, then click Connect.
Tip
On first connect, Paylood automatically sets up Docker and a swap file on your server if needed. No manual installation required.
4. Create your project
- In the sidebar, click New Project.
- Repository step: select your Git provider, repository and branch. Paylood analyzes the repository and detects your stack (Node.js, Laravel, etc.).
- SSH Config step: choose the VPS server to deploy to.
- Database & Services step: adjust the detected services (database, Redis\u2026) and environment variables.
- Domain step: choose a free
*.paylood.appsubdomain or your own domain. - Review step: check the summary, then click Save & Deploy.
Capture à venir
en/projects-create
Cette capture illustrera la vue correspondante. Elle est générée automatiquement par le pipeline Playwright.
5. Follow the deployment
The deployment starts automatically. The steps stream live in the Logs tab:
- Repository clone
- Dockerfile generation
- Upload to the server
- Proxy setup (Traefik/Caddy)
- Docker image build
- Container startup
- Health check
Capture à venir
en/projects-deployments
Cette capture illustrera la vue correspondante. Elle est générée automatiquement par le pipeline Playwright.
Once the done step is reached, your application is live!
What’s next?
- Enable auto-deploy to deploy on every push.
- Attach your domain and enable SSL.
- Set up backups for your databases.
- Harden your server with automatic hardening.
Important
Paylood deploys your applications on your own servers. Connection credentials are encrypted server-side with your encryption key — never share them.