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, if you want, asterisk and coturn for the built-in phone system (since 1.1.58 the installer asks), caddy for automatic HTTPS and, since 1.1.42, optionally translate for translation in the inbox. 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), only up to 1.1.50; no longer needed from 1.1.51, announcements are your own recordings	0.2 → 0.5 GB	only when voicing prompts
translate (optional)	translation in the inbox on your server (LibreTranslate)	0.1 → 0.9 GB (German/English/Turkish), each further language +0.2–0.4 GB; hard limit 1.5 GB	bursts while translating, number of languages

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).

Translation (optional, from 1.1.42): the translate service translates in the inbox on your own server, without internet access. Plan up to 1.5 GB RAM extra for it (German/English/Turkish need up to ~0.9 GB) and ~0.6 GB disk once for the language models (plus ~0.6 GB for the image). How to switch it on, and the compose blocks for installations from before 1.1.42: Self-hosting operations → Translation. Without the service, translation works with your own AI or DeepL key.

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. Without a paid key at most 2 simultaneous calls are possible.

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.
Translation (optional): language models once ~0.6 GB (German, English, Turkish) plus ~0.6 GB for the image.

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 IPv4 address (no CGNAT; the phone system only supports IPv4). On a home connection with a changing address it's only good for testing. If the server is behind a router (NAT), forward the ports below to it; the installer asks for the public address and remembers your local one.
Ports (incoming, also in your provider's firewall): SIP 5060/udp, voice (RTP) 10000–20000/udp, STUN/TURN for video meetings 3478/udp + 3478/tcp, TURN relay 49152–49252/udp, phone in the browser via 443/tcp (open for the app anyway). Never open from outside: 5038/tcp (AMI) and 8188/tcp (Asterisk HTTP) — only containers on the server need them.
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.
Simultaneous calls (from 1.1.46): without a paid key at most 2, as on Free. For the whole server PBX_MAX_CONCURRENT applies (default 80, measured on 4 vCPU). For that, Asterisk needs more than 1024 open files: ulimits with nofile 65536 on the compose service asterisk, otherwise set 55 at most (guide).

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 → Data backup).
HTTPS: the self-host bundle ships Caddy (automatic Let's Encrypt certificates).
Updates: from 1.1.53 the installation updates itself at night with update.sh – with a backup first and a check afterwards (can be turned off; at least 3 GB of free space for the new images). A banner in the app reports new versions and you can update instantly with a button. Installations from before 1.1.53 use Watchtower until you switch.
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.