VPSbitMatrix homeserver on a VPS
Synapse, Dendrite or Conduit on a no-ID VPS: your DNS, your .well-known, your rooms. Prime tier to start; RAM follows rooms and media.
Deploy Synapse following Element's own documentation, put federation on your domain via server-name discovery, and grow RAM as room state and uploaded media grow. You administer the homeserver; the host rents the VM and stays out of it.
12 locations · 19 coins · SLA 99.95% · no KYC · public canary
What people actually run
The reference pairing is the Synapse installation homeserver with the Element clients; Matrix: self-hosting documents the federation model that makes a homeserver worth running. Lighter daemons — Dendrite, Conduit — fit small deployments on the same terms. Delegation files under /.well-known/matrix/ are served by your web stack on the same box, not by the host: you point DNS, you publish the server name, the network follows it.
VPS from $4.80* — Core on the annual term (list $6/mo), one invoice for 12 months, no auto-charges. Dedicated with IPMI from $39.20/mo. Crypto invoice, no KYC.
Launch nowPlaybook
- Start on Prime. Move up when Postgres and media grow.
- Install from Synapse installation. Serve federation on your domain.
- Switzerland for process. Iceland for speech. Amsterdam for EU users.
Sizing and placement
Room state and media storage are the two appetite centers, so RAM and NVMe decide the tier: Titan (8 vCPU / 32 GB / 320 GB, $24 list, $19.20 annual-eff) carries a household or a small community; growing media libraries pair a second box, and archival rooms plus attachments sit inside the 320 GB plan disk on the same account. Placement is a jurisdiction choice as much as a latency one — Zurich when process quality is the story, Reykjavik for the speech climate, Amsterdam when most members are EU and RTT should vanish. The longer setup walkthrough lives in the Synapse self-hosting guide.
Limits
Legal rooms only. A homeserver is an ordinary workload under the AUP — federation traffic is fine, hosting attack coordination or worse is not. The host does not moderate rooms, manage synapse, or read your Postgres; it also does not protect the box from valid local process.
Do you manage Synapse for me?
No. You get root and install from the project's own docs; upgrades, registration rules and media cleanup are administrator work, which is the point of self-hosting.
Which ports does federation need?
Whatever the software requires — typically 8448 for server-to-server traffic plus 443 for clients. Firewall policy on the VM is yours; the host does not filter either.
Is a VPS big enough for Synapse?
Yes for small and mid-sized homeservers. Prime is the practical starting tier; watch RAM against room state and move up on metrics, not on hope.
Can members connect over Tor?
Yes — clients reach the box like any other service. The checkout itself stays no-KYC with nineteen coin options, XMR included, so payment and membership stay separate concerns.
Primary sources
Ready to launch?
Build the box — VPS or bare metal — create the password, pay the invoice that follows.