Setup Cashlytics on a Linux Server - Self-host your AI powered finance manager
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Introduction
Cashlytics is a modern personal finance and budgeting platform designed to help you track spending, manage budgets, and gain insights into your financial habits. By analyzing transaction data and spending categories, Cashlytics helps you understand where your money goes and how you can improve your financial planning.
The platform can also optionally integrate with AI-powered assistance, allowing you to analyze financial data, identify spending patterns, and receive intelligent insights into your budgeting behavior.
Self-hosting Cashlytics on your own server gives you full control over your financial data while keeping your budgeting tools accessible from anywhere through a web interface. Planning to host Cashlytics yourself? This guide walks you through the installation process using Docker on your Linux VPS.
Use cases of Cashlytics
Cashlytics can be used in a variety of personal and professional scenarios where financial organization and budgeting are important. Typical use cases include:
- Tracking personal expenses and monthly budgets
- Monitoring spending patterns and financial habits
- Managing multiple income sources and financial categories
- Generating AI-powered insights for smarter budgeting
- Hosting a private and self-controlled financial dashboard
Because it is self-hosted, Cashlytics is ideal for users who want a privacy-focused alternative to cloud-based financial tools.
Prerequisites
Before installing Cashlytics, ensure your VPS meets the following requirements.
| Hardware | Minimum | Recommended |
|---|---|---|
| CPU | 1 Core | 2 Core |
| RAM | 2 GB | 4 GB |
| Disk space | 10 GB | 20 GB |
Additionally, the following software must be installed:
- Docker
- Docker Compose
If Docker is not installed yet, please follow our guide on installing Docker before continuing.
Preparation
First create a project directory for the Cashlytics installation.
mkdir cashlytics && cd cashlytics
Next download the official Cashlytics Docker configuration files.
curl -O https://raw.githubusercontent.com/aaronjoeldev/cashlytics-ai/main/docker-compose.selfhost.yml
curl -O https://raw.githubusercontent.com/aaronjoeldev/cashlytics-ai/main/.env.example
Create your environment configuration file by copying the example file.
cp .env.example .env
The .env file contains the configuration variables required to run Cashlytics.
Installation
Open an .env file
Open the .env file and configure the required environment variables.
nano .env
Configure database password
Set a secure password for the PostgreSQL database used by Cashlytics.
POSTGRES_PASSWORD=your_secure_password_here
Configure database connection
Update the database connection string and use the same password defined above.
DATABASE_URL=postgresql://cashlytics:your_secure_password_here@postgres:5432/cashlytics
Optional AI assistant
Cashlytics supports an optional AI assistant that can analyze financial data and provide budgeting insights. To enable this feature, add your OpenAI API key.
OPENAI_API_KEY=sk-your-openai-key
If you do not want to use the AI assistant, this variable can be left empty.
Starting Cashlytics
Once the configuration is complete, start the application using Docker Compose.
docker compose -f docker-compose.selfhost.yml up -d
Docker will now download the required container images and start the Cashlytics services. To verify that the containers are running, you can use:
docker ps
Accessing Cashlytics
After the containers have started successfully, you can access the Cashlytics web interface. Open your browser and navigate to:
http://YOUR_SERVER_IP:3000
Replace YOUR_SERVER_IP with the IP address of your VPS. Once the interface loads, you can begin configuring your finances, budgets, and categories.
Conclusion
Congratulations! You have successfully installed Cashlytics on your Linux server. You can now start using the platform to track expenses, manage budgets, and gain insights into your financial data.
Running Cashlytics on your own VPS/Dedicated Server ensures that your financial information remains under your control while still benefiting from modern budgeting tools and optional AI-powered analysis.
For further questions or assistance, please don’t hesitate to contact our support team, which is available daily to assist you! 🙂