The-Y CRM · Self-hosting

Which server do I need?

This page tells you which server size you need for which usage — with a clear recommendation, so you buy neither too small (stutters, calls drop) nor unnecessarily large.

In short: The-Y CRM already runs on a small 4 GB server. What really drives the requirement is telephony with many concurrent calls + recording and large marketing sends — not the number of your contacts. Most companies do great with "Medium" (4 vCPU / 8 GB).

1. Minimum (just to get it running)

Resource	Minimum	Note
CPU	2 vCPU	1 vCPU is only good for a look, not real operation
RAM	4 GB	Below that the kernel kills services under load spikes (build/marketing)
Disk	40 GB SSD	System + images + DB + first attachments. HDD not recommended (Postgres + object store want IOPS)
OS	Linux + Docker & Docker Compose	tested on Debian/Ubuntu
Network	static IP recommended	required for the built-in phone system (see §5)

That starts the full stack: app, worker, postgres, redis, minio — plus optional asterisk, coturn, piper for the built-in phone system and caddy for automatic HTTPS. The installer sets all of it up with one command.

2. What each service costs

Service	What for	RAM (idle → load)	Driver
app	Web UI + API	0.4 → 1.5 GB	concurrent users
worker	Email fetch, marketing, reminders, call post-processing	0.25 → 1 GB	marketing size, mailboxes
postgres	all data	0.5 → 1.5 GB	data volume + reports
redis	job queue	~0.1 GB	—
minio	attachments, recordings, voicemail	~0.25 GB	file volume (disk!)
asterisk	phone system	0.2 GB → per call	concurrent calls
coturn	audio relay (NAT)	~0.1 GB	calls over difficult networks
piper	neural announcement voice (TTS)	0.2 → 0.5 GB	only when voicing prompts

Rule of thumb: contacts/companies/deals are almost free for the server (database rows). What grows is disk space (attachments/recordings) and CPU/bandwidth (concurrent calls).

3. Recommended sizes by usage

Pick the column where your highest number lands — one big number is enough to move you up a tier.

	Small	Medium	Large
Server	2 vCPU · 4 GB · 40 GB SSD	4 vCPU · 8 GB · 80–160 GB SSD	8+ vCPU · 16–32 GB · 200+ GB NVMe
Concurrent users	up to ~5	~5–20	20–50+
Emails / day	up to ~500	~500–3,000	3,000+
Concurrent calls	1–2	5–10	20+
Call recording	light	yes	constant
Marketing / month	up to ~2,000	~10–20,000	50,000+
Good for	solo office, start	growing team	call center / multiple brands

Important about "concurrent calls": what counts is not how many calls per day, but how many run at the same time. 200 calls/day but never more than 3 in parallel = Small/Medium.

Our clear recommendation
Most companies: "Medium" — 4 vCPU / 8 GB / 80–160 GB SSD. Comfortable headroom for team, reports, marketing and ~5–10 parallel calls with recording.
Only CRM + email + web chat (barely any phone): "Small" is plenty. · Serious call center: "Large", and then keep telephony and database on separate servers (§6).

4. Plan disk space realistically

The disk is what fills up over time — plan it more generously than RAM:

Call recordings: ~1 MB per minute of conversation. 1,000 recorded minutes/month ≈ 1 GB/month.
Email attachments / media: highly variable; large PDFs/images add up.
Database: grows slowly (text). Even 100,000+ conversations stay in the low GB range.
Docker images: ~2–4 GB.

Rule of thumb: base 40 GB + estimated recording/attachment growth × 12 months + reserve. With a lot of recording, plan 160–200 GB. Old recordings/attachments can be offloaded/deleted later.

5. Telephony needs more than compute

If you use the built-in phone system, network requirements are added:

Public, static IP (no CGNAT). Behind a home/NAT connection it's only good for testing.
Open ports: SIP 5060/udp, RTP audio 10000–10200/udp, coturn 3478 + 49152–49252/udp.
Bandwidth: ~170 kbit/s per concurrent call (in+out, G.711). 10 in parallel ≈ ~1.7 Mbit/s stable — upload counts.
Transcoding trap: if endpoints/trunk speak different codecs, Asterisk has to convert (costs CPU per call). Recommendation: use the same codec (G.711) everywhere.

6. Email sending: outbound ports (the most common cloud pitfall)

The CRM sends email (password reset, notifications, marketing) via your SMTP mailbox — i.e. outbound connections to port 587 (or 465/25). Many cloud/VPS providers block these outbound mail ports by default as anti-spam (incl. Hetzner, netcup, DigitalOcean, AWS/GCP/Azure).

Symptom: email sending fails with "Connection timeout", even though credentials are correct. Receiving via IMAP (993) is usually NOT blocked → only sending hangs.
Check (from the server): nc -zv your-mailserver 587 — timeout = blocked.
Fix 1 (usually easiest): open a support ticket with your provider to "unblock outbound SMTP ports 587/465" (with your server IP; no bulk mail). For legitimate use this is generally granted.
Fix 2: use a transactional email service over HTTPS/port 443 — 443 is never blocked.

On your own/company connection this usually doesn't happen; there the static IP is the topic (§5).

7. When to split (scale-out)

A single server carries far. Only real call-center volume makes splitting worthwhile:

First postgres onto its own server (or managed Postgres) — the DB is the most valuable, IO-sensitive part.
Then asterisk + coturn onto their own telephony host — so call load never disturbs the web app.
minio can point to external S3 storage when recordings/attachments get large.

8. Operations & backups

Backups: the most important is Postgres (regular pg_dump or managed backup) + the minio volume. In addition the CRM offers a per-tenant snapshot export (Settings → Backup).
HTTPS: the self-host bundle ships Caddy (automatic Let's Encrypt certificates).
Updates: Watchtower pulls new images nightly (can be turned off); a banner in the app reports new versions and you can update instantly with a button.
RAM reserve: leave ~20 % RAM free — marketing bulk sends + the nightly build/pull are load spikes.

Quick decision
"Just a CRM + mailbox + chat for a small team" → Small (2/4/40).
"Team, reports, marketing, occasional calls with recording" → Medium (4/8/160) — our standard recommendation.
"We're on the phone all day / call center" → Large (8+/16–32/NVMe), split telephony & DB later.
When in doubt, start one tier larger — adding RAM/disk later is more annoying than having reserve from the start.

Ready? → Go to the installation guide (one command, no config files) · Questions? Contact us.