How can i deploy in custom hosting domain?

[sundarpolos]

is it possible to deploy this openwa in any hosting or hostinger domain hpanel with custom domain name to run always?

[dannylank]

Hello I have a new hosting system where you can map a docker containers with a specific port with domain or subdomain with sll actually I have this https://vpscolombia.co:2785

[rmyndharis]

Hi @sundarpolos — yes, you can absolutely run OpenWA on a custom domain. The short version: run OpenWA on a VPS, put a reverse proxy in front of it that terminates TLS, and point your domain at the proxy. hPanel-style shared hosting (Hostinger/Hostgator/cPanel) generally won't work because it doesn't give you a long-running process or Docker.

What you need

1. A VPS or Docker-capable host — DigitalOcean, Hetzner, Linode, Vultr, or any provider that gives you root + Docker. A 2 GB RAM VPS is enough for one Baileys session; budget 4 GB+ if you want to run the whatsapp-web.js engine (it drives a headless Chromium).
2. A domain name pointed at the VPS (an A record in your DNS).
3. A reverse proxy that terminates TLS — Caddy (easiest, auto-HTTPS via Let's Encrypt), Traefik, or Nginx.

Recommended setup: Caddy

docker-compose.yml:

services:
  openwa:
    image: ghcr.io/rmyndharis/openwa:latest
    volumes:
      - ./data:/app/data
    restart: unless-stopped
    # No port published — only the proxy talks to it

  caddy:
    image: caddy:2
    ports:
      - "80:80"
      - "443:443"
    volumes:
      - ./Caddyfile:/etc/caddy/Caddyfile
      - caddy_data:/data
    restart: unless-stopped

volumes:
  caddy_data:

Caddyfile:

wa.yourdomain.com {
    reverse_proxy openwa:2785
}

docker compose up -d and Caddy will fetch a Let's Encrypt cert automatically. Visit https://wa.yourdomain.com and you're live.

Why not shared hPanel hosting?

Shared hosting is built for PHP/HTML sites served by Apache/nginx the host controls. OpenWA is a long-running Node.js process that needs to hold open WebSocket connections to WhatsApp 24/7. That doesn't fit a per-request PHP-FPM model, and shared hosts usually don't allow custom daemons or Docker.

Further reading

We have a step-by-step guide for Traefik and Coolify specifically in docs/12-troubleshooting-faq.md — worth a look if you go the Traefik route.

---

@dannylank — the URL you posted (https://vpscolombia.co:2785) exposes the OpenWA port directly on a non-standard HTTPS port. That works, but if you want to use the standard https://yourdomain.com (port 443), the reverse-proxy pattern above is the way to go. Also worth noting: serving OpenWA directly on :2785 means TLS is whatever you've configured at the OpenWA level; a reverse proxy lets you centralize TLS for everything on the box.