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System Requirements

This page outlines the hardware and software requirements for self-hosting PlexMCP.

Hardware Requirements​

Minimum (Development/Testing)​

ResourceRequirement
CPU2 cores
RAM4 GB
Storage20 GB
Network100 Mbps
ResourceRequirement
CPU4+ cores
RAM8+ GB
Storage100+ GB SSD
Network1 Gbps

Scaling Guidelines​

UsersCPURAMStorage
1-102 cores4 GB20 GB
10-504 cores8 GB50 GB
50-2008 cores16 GB100 GB
200+16+ cores32+ GB200+ GB

Software Requirements​

Operating System​

PlexMCP runs on any Linux distribution. Tested on:

  • Ubuntu 22.04 LTS (recommended)
  • Debian 12
  • Amazon Linux 2023
  • Rocky Linux 9
  • macOS 13+ (for development)
  • Docker Engine 24.0+
  • Docker Compose 2.20+

Or:

  • Podman 4.0+
  • Podman Compose 1.0+

Manual Deployment​

If not using Docker:

  • PostgreSQL 15+ (16 recommended)
  • Redis 7+
  • Rust 1.75+ (for building from source)
  • Node.js 20+ (for frontend)

Network Requirements​

Ports​

PortServiceRequired
3000Web FrontendYes
8080API ServerYes
5432PostgreSQLInternal only
6379RedisInternal only

Firewall Rules​

Inbound:

  • 80/443 (if using reverse proxy)
  • 3000 (web frontend, if exposing directly)
  • 8080 (API, if exposing directly)

Outbound:

  • 443 (for MCP server connections)
  • 5432 (if using external PostgreSQL)
  • 6379 (if using external Redis)

TLS/SSL​

For production deployments:

  • TLS 1.2+ required
  • Valid SSL certificate recommended
  • Use a reverse proxy (nginx, Caddy, Traefik)

Database Requirements​

PostgreSQL​

  • Version 15 or higher (16 recommended)
  • Extensions required: uuid-ossp, pgcrypto
  • Connection pooling recommended for 50+ users

Sizing Guidelines:

UsersConnectionsStorage
1-10201 GB
10-50505 GB
50-20010020 GB
200+200+50+ GB

Redis​

  • Version 7 or higher
  • Persistence enabled (AOF recommended)
  • 512MB+ memory

Optional Requirements​

Email (Transactional)​

To enable email features (password reset, notifications):

  • SMTP server or
  • Resend API key or
  • SendGrid API key

OAuth (Social Login)​

To enable Google/GitHub login:

  • Supabase project or
  • Custom OAuth implementation

GeoIP (Location Data)​

To enable IP geolocation:

  • MaxMind GeoLite2 database

Cloud Provider Compatibility​

PlexMCP can be deployed on any cloud provider:

ProviderTestedNotes
AWS✅EC2, ECS, EKS
Google Cloud✅GCE, Cloud Run, GKE
Azure✅VMs, Container Apps, AKS
DigitalOcean✅Droplets, App Platform
Hetzner✅Dedicated servers, Cloud
Fly.io✅Our cloud runs here
Railway✅One-click deploy
Render✅One-click deploy

Verifying Requirements​

Run this script to check your system:

#!/bin/bash
echo "Checking PlexMCP requirements..."

# Check Docker
if command -v docker &> /dev/null; then
    echo "✅ Docker: $(docker --version)"
else
    echo "❌ Docker not found"
fi

# Check Docker Compose
if command -v docker compose &> /dev/null; then
    echo "✅ Docker Compose: $(docker compose version)"
else
    echo "❌ Docker Compose not found"
fi

# Check memory
mem=$(free -g | awk '/^Mem:/{print $2}')
if [ "$mem" -ge 4 ]; then
    echo "✅ Memory: ${mem}GB"
else
    echo "⚠️ Memory: ${mem}GB (4GB+ recommended)"
fi

# Check disk
disk=$(df -BG / | awk 'NR==2 {print $4}' | tr -d 'G')
if [ "$disk" -ge 20 ]; then
    echo "✅ Disk space: ${disk}GB available"
else
    echo "⚠️ Disk space: ${disk}GB (20GB+ recommended)"
fi

echo "Done!"

Next Steps​