Deployment
The Unsexy Stack deploys to a persistent server, not a serverless platform. Python belongs on a box where it can hold connection pools and avoid cold-starts. Professional and Agency both ship the configs to run it on any $5/month VPS.
What the Professional tier ships
Section titled “What the Professional tier ships”- systemd units for the FastAPI backend and the Next.js frontend.
- nginx reverse-proxy configuration.
- certbot SSL setup.
- Docker Compose for containerized local and production deploys.
- Environment handling and a documented deploy walkthrough (
START_HERE.md).
No Vercel, no Railway required — though Railway and Render run it too if you prefer a managed platform.
What the Agency tier adds
Section titled “What the Agency tier adds”- CI/CD — GitHub Actions workflows for testing, building, and deployment.
- Client delivery — white-label rights, client handoff docs, agency onboarding docs, and the 10-developer team license.
Docker is not an Agency-only feature anymore as of v1.2.1. Professional gets both deploy paths: systemd/nginx for low-magic VPS installs and Docker Compose for container-first teams. Agency is the business/client-delivery tier.
The one-command dev loop
Section titled “The one-command dev loop”make setup # installs everythingmake dev # runs FastAPI + Next.js together, OpenAPI docs at localhost:8000/docsOne command brings the whole stack up locally — no two-terminal dance, no guessing which service starts first.