How to Self-Host Chatwoot in 2026 (After the Cloud API Paywall)
Self-hosted Chatwoot is free under the MIT licence and keeps full API and webhook access. On Chatwoot Cloud, the free plan lost both on 16 July 2026. To self-host it you need four things: the Chatwoot Community Edition image (chatwoot/chatwoot:<version>-ce), PostgreSQL with the pgvector extension, Redis, and a Sidekiq worker next to the Rails server. The Docker Compose file below starts all four. It idles at about 810 MB of RAM.
Conflict of interest, stated up front: I run Hostim.dev, a hosting platform, and there is a one-click Chatwoot template on it. A pricing change that pushes people toward self-hosting is good for me. So every number below is either measured or linked, and the Docker Compose path runs on any server you like, not on ours.