Self-Hosted Trading Bots: Architecture, Cost and Security
What self-hosting changes for automated trading: control, VPS operations, credentials, updates, monitoring and the responsibility to keep the system reliable.
Why self-host
Self-hosting gives direct control over strategy code, data, model artifacts and operational configuration. It also transfers uptime and security responsibility to the operator.
A small VPS can be enough
Resource requirements depend on pair count, model training, database workload and data processing. Capacity should be measured rather than guessed, especially for ML workloads.
Security boundary
SSH access, exchange credentials and bot state belong on the private trading environment. A public dashboard should not become an administrative path into that host.
What we run
Our research separates the trading VPS from the public website. V6 uses Freqtrade/FreqAI while sanitized metrics are pushed to the website over an authenticated HTTPS ingest path.
Deployment checklist
Define the trading hypothesis, isolate credentials, persist critical state, test restart behavior, measure net outcomes and keep a frozen forward record. Each layer should be diagnosable without rewriting the others.