Uptime Kuma System Requirements for a VPS: CPU, RAM, Disk and Storage

Uptime Kuma has no published official minimum for CPU cores, RAM capacity or disk size. Its documented baseline is a supported Linux or Windows host, the required Docker or non-Docker runtime, and persistent storage for /app/data that supports POSIX file locking. A third-party 2025 guide suggests 1 GB of RAM as a starting point, but that is a workload-dependent heuristic, not a vendor guarantee.

Antihost offers Linux VPS plans with full root access, unlimited traffic on a 1 Gbps port and a 14-day free trial.

For a small installation, choose a Linux VPS with local SSD storage, reliable backups and at least 1 GB RAM if your budget allows. Treat that as a starting allocation, then watch memory, CPU and disk growth as you add monitors, shorten polling intervals or retain more history.

#	Preview	Product	Price
1		ZOERAX 100-Pack M6 x 16mm Rack Mount Cage Nuts, Screws and Washers	$23.99	Buy on Amazon

As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

What Uptime Kuma officially requires

The official Uptime Kuma installation documentation describes platforms and software prerequisites rather than a numeric hardware floor. It does not specify a minimum CPU model, core count, clock speed, RAM amount or disk capacity. Any VPS specification presented as an official minimum is therefore overstating what the project documents.

The official wiki states: “Filesystem support for POSIX file locks is required to avoid SQLite database corruption.” That requirement is more important than buying a large disk. A cheap network-mounted filesystem can be unsuitable even when it offers plenty of capacity.

#1 Best Overall

ZOERAX 100-Pack M6 x 16mm Rack Mount Cage Nuts, Screws and Washers

• Wide Compatibility & Versatile Use: ZOERAX M6 rack mount screw kit is ideal for installing server racks, network cabinets, rack shelves, patch panels, A/V equipment, and more. Designed for standard square-hole racks and cabinets, these M6 cage nuts and screws ensure a secure fit for most 19-inch rack systems used in data centers, offices, and home labs
• Heavy-Duty Carbon Steel Construction: Made from premium carbon steel, these M6 cage nuts and screws deliver high strength and long-lasting durability. The material provides excellent resistance to rust, corrosion, and oxidation, performing reliably in demanding environments such as high humidity, temperature fluctuations, and long-term rack installations
• Precision Metric Standard M6: Manufactured to strict metric standards, each M6 screw and cage nut features precise dimensions with minimal tolerance. Clean, sharp threads without burrs allow smooth installation without stripping or slipping. The deep Phillips head design ensures better torque control and faster, more efficient mounting
• Safe, Reliable & Eco-Conscious Materials: ZOERAX uses non-toxic, environmentally friendly carbon steel materials to ensure safe handling and use. Heat-treated for optimal hardness, ductility, and impact resistance, these rack screws and cage nuts offer dependable performance while meeting safety and quality expectations for professional installations
• Complete Mounting Kit with Washers: This essential M6 rack hardware kit includes screws, cage nuts, and heavy-duty washers. The included washers help distribute pressure evenly and reduce scratches or marks on rack rails and equipment, providing a cleaner, more secure installation right out of the box

$23.99

Buy on Amazon

How much RAM does Uptime Kuma need?

UptimeKuma.co lists “Minimum RAM: 1 GB” in a 2025 guide and explains that requirements vary with the number of monitoring probes. This is a third-party starting point, not an official Uptime Kuma requirement. It is reasonable to use 1 GB as a practical entry point for a small VPS, while leaving headroom for the operating system, Docker or Node.js, updates and other services.

What increases memory use

• More monitors and probes running at the same time.
• Shorter polling intervals, which increase concurrent work and database activity.
• Longer data retention, because the local database contains more history.
• Frequent notifications and integrations.
• Other applications sharing the VPS.

A 1 GB VPS may run a modest installation, but there is no official monitor-count guarantee for that size. If the host starts swapping, the practical limit has been reached even if Uptime Kuma itself still appears online. Reserve additional memory before adding unrelated services such as a web server, control panel or database.

How to check memory pressure

On Linux, inspect the host with free -h, top or htop. In Docker, check the container with docker stats. Look for sustained swap use, an increasing resident memory footprint and out-of-memory events in the host logs. A one-time spike during an update is less significant than a steady trend that leaves no headroom.

How many CPU cores does Uptime Kuma need?

No official CPU floor or core-count recommendation is published. Uptime Kuma is generally light for a small monitoring deployment, but CPU demand rises with the amount of work performed during each polling cycle. Single-core performance can matter more than a high advertised core count when the VPS is running a small number of monitors.

CPU factors to compare

• Single-core performance: useful when checks and notification processing are bursty.
• Shared-host contention: a heavily oversold VPS can be slow despite its listed vCPU count.
• Burst policy: some plans allow temporary bursts but throttle sustained use.
• Concurrent workload: many checks scheduled for the same moment can create short CPU peaks.

Do not convert a monitor count into a guaranteed core requirement. The project has not published a benchmark table tying monitor totals, intervals or probe types to a particular CPU. Select a plan with at least one dependable vCPU for a small installation, then scale when measured utilization remains high or checks begin running late.

How much disk space does Uptime Kuma use?

The official documentation does not state a minimum disk capacity. What it does require is persistent storage mounted at /app/data. That directory contains the application’s SQLite database and related data, so deleting it or mounting it on ephemeral container storage can remove your configuration and history when the container is recreated.

Capacity is less important than filesystem behavior

Use a local SSD-backed directory or volume with reliable POSIX file locking. The official wiki warns that POSIX locks are required to avoid SQLite corruption and cautions against NFS. A network filesystem that does not provide the expected locking semantics can damage the database even when latency and capacity look adequate.

What makes the database grow

• The number of monitors and probes.
• Polling frequency.
• How much history you retain.
• Notification and event activity.
• Logs, backups and snapshots kept on the same VPS.

Because no official capacity figure or growth benchmark is available, start with ample free space rather than a claimed “minimum.” Monitor the size of the data directory with du -sh /path/to/uptime-kuma-data and set an alert for the VPS filesystem itself. Keep backups separate from the live data directory so a full disk does not prevent both operation and recovery.

Docker requirements and a basic VPS deployment

The official Docker examples use the image tag louislam/uptime-kuma:1 in older documentation and louislam/uptime-kuma:2 in the v2 revision. Both examples expose container port 3001 and mount persistent storage at /app/data. Use the tag that matches the major-version documentation you are following; do not mix instructions from v1 and v2 without checking their runtime requirements.

Minimal Docker pattern

1. Install a supported Linux distribution and Docker Engine on the VPS.
2. Create a host directory or Docker volume dedicated to Uptime Kuma data.
3. Run the image with host port 3001 mapped to container port 3001 and the data path mounted at /app/data. A typical pattern is docker run -d -p 3001:3001 -v uptime-kuma:/app/data louislam/uptime-kuma:2; select the v1 tag only when you are intentionally deploying v1.
4. Allow TCP 3001 through the VPS firewall, or place the service behind your existing reverse proxy.
5. Open http://your-server-address:3001 and complete the initial account setup.

After the Docker command completes, the official documentation says: “Uptime Kuma is now running on http://localhost:3001.” On a remote VPS, replace localhost with the server’s address and secure public access with HTTPS and authentication controls appropriate to your deployment.

Docker Compose considerations

Compose is also documented as an installation option. The important resource settings are unchanged: persist /app/data, map port 3001, and use storage that supports POSIX locking. Compose makes restart policy, volume declarations and version pinning easier to review, but it does not remove the underlying CPU, memory or storage requirements.

Non-Docker requirements by major version

The non-Docker prerequisites differ between the v2 and older v1 documentation. Identify the major version before choosing a Node.js runtime.

These are software and platform prerequisites, not hardware sizing guarantees. A host can satisfy the Node.js version requirement and still be too constrained once the operating system, Uptime Kuma and other workloads compete for memory or I/O.

Choosing a VPS for Uptime Kuma

Compare plans on more than advertised vCPU and RAM. The following checklist reflects the factors that affect reliability most directly.

Practical sizing by workload

Small personal or homelab deployment

A small Linux VPS with 1 GB RAM, one dependable vCPU and local SSD storage can be a sensible starting point when only a modest number of endpoints are checked and no other heavy services share the machine. This is a planning heuristic, not a guaranteed capacity statement.

Growing service or team deployment

Choose more than 1 GB RAM when the VPS also hosts a reverse proxy, dashboards, databases or other applications, or when you expect to add many monitors. Extra memory reduces the chance that normal update or notification activity forces the host into swap. Prefer predictable CPU allocation over a high but heavily throttled vCPU count.

High-frequency or business-critical monitoring

For short polling intervals, extensive history, many notification channels or a large monitor estate, size from measurements rather than a generic plan label. Track CPU utilization, load, memory and swap, database-directory growth, filesystem latency and missed or delayed checks. Split unrelated workloads onto another VPS when contention makes alert timing unpredictable.

Installation and validation checklist

1. Confirm the Uptime Kuma major version and read the matching installation instructions.
2. Choose a supported Linux or Windows host with enough memory headroom for the operating system and any co-hosted services.
3. Provide persistent storage for /app/data on a filesystem with POSIX file-lock support.
4. Do not place the SQLite data directory on NFS or another storage system whose locking behavior is uncertain.
5. Expose port 3001 only as needed and protect remote administration with HTTPS, firewall rules and strong credentials.
6. Configure backups or snapshots and test that the data directory can be restored.
7. After adding monitors, observe memory, CPU, swap, disk growth and alert delivery before treating the initial VPS size as final.

Common problems and fixes

The container restarts or is killed

Check docker ps -a, docker logs and host memory statistics. An out-of-memory event usually means the VPS has insufficient headroom or another service is consuming the allocation. Reduce competing workloads or move to a larger plan before adding monitors.

Data disappears after an update

Verify that a persistent volume or host directory is mounted at /app/data. Recreating a container without that mount creates a fresh database and can make the installation appear empty.

SQLite corruption or locking errors

Inspect the storage type and mount options first. Move the data directory to local storage with POSIX file-lock support, stop the application cleanly, restore a known-good backup if necessary and avoid NFS for the live database.

Checks are delayed even though RAM is available

Investigate CPU steal time, burst throttling, network latency and a large number of checks scheduled together. More RAM will not fix a congested or throttled CPU, and a faster CPU will not fix an unreliable network path.

The disk fills unexpectedly

Measure the data directory, logs, Docker layers and backup files separately. Increase capacity or move backups off-host, then configure filesystem monitoring so growth is detected before SQLite cannot write.

Bottom line

There is no official Uptime Kuma CPU, RAM or disk minimum to quote. Plan around the documented requirements instead: a supported host, the correct runtime for your major version, persistent /app/data storage and POSIX file locking. A third-party 2025 guide’s 1 GB RAM figure is a useful starting heuristic for a small VPS, not a guarantee. Select local SSD storage and dependable CPU and network performance, measure the workload you actually run, and scale before swapping, throttling or disk pressure affects alert delivery.

Quick Recap

Bestseller No. 1

ZOERAX 100-Pack M6 x 16mm Rack Mount Cage Nuts, Screws and Washers

$23.99

Product prices and availability are accurate as of the date/time indicated and are subject to change. Any price and availability information displayed on Amazon at the time of purchase will apply.