Vanilla Cookbook Hosting Live In 5 Minutes

Deploy Vanilla Cookbook on xCloud and get Vanilla Cookbook hosting that keeps your recipe collection on your own server instead of a hosted service. xCloud runs the pinned community image behind a small nginx gateway, creates the administrator account for you with a generated password, mounts persistent volumes for the database and uploaded photos, and publishes it over HTTPS on your domain.

Deploy your Vanilla Cookbook

No terminal
No technical skills needed
No lock-in, cancel anytime

What is Vanilla Cookbook?

Vanilla Cookbook is a self-hosted recipe manager, designed with complexity under the hood and an uncluttered interface. A self-hosted Vanilla Cookbook imports recipes from web pages and from Paprika, parses ingredient text into quantity, unit and ingredient, converts between metric and US display and scales quantities, and keeps shopping lists and a calendar, as an alternative to a hosted recipe app. Upstream says it is not vibe coded. It is licensed under GPL-3.0.

On xCloud the install runs v1.6.0 of a community-built image, pinned by digest, with a SQLite database behind a private nginx gateway. Two volumes hold vanilla_cookbook_db and vanilla_cookbook_uploads. The administrator is created at install, because upstream's setup endpoint does not check whether setup already happened, and the gateway blocks it. Registration is closed until an administrator enables it.

From Sign-Up to Your First Recipe In Just 3 Easy Steps

Self-hosting a recipe manager normally means a container, a gateway, an admin account, volumes, a domain and a certificate before the first recipe. This is the same result without assembling any of it.

Step 01
Sign Up
Create your xCloud account and pick Vanilla Cookbook from the OneClick catalog. Choose your domain and target server — there are no extra fields to fill in, because xCloud generates the credentials.
Step 02
We Deploy It For You
One click. We bring up the community-built Vanilla Cookbook image, pinned by immutable digest, behind a private nginx gateway, run a one-shot init container that creates the admin account with a generated password, mount the vanilla_cookbook_db and vanilla_cookbook_uploads volumes, and publish it over HTTPS.
Step 03
Sign In And Add Recipes
Save the administrator password from the protected installation credentials, give the first start about two minutes for migrations, then sign in as admin. Change the email and password under your profile, then import a collection or add your first recipe.

Everything Vanilla Cookbook Does, On Your Own Server

Vanilla Cookbook runs in full here: a recipe manager on your own domain, with the data in volumes you control.

Recipe Import
Import recipes from web pages and from Paprika, and export your data again; upstream lists multiple import formats and exports.
Ingredient Parsing And Unit Conversion
Ingredient text is parsed into quantity, unit and ingredient, with metric and US display and conversion between them.
Shopping List And Calendar
Build a shopping list and use calendar views from the recipes you keep.
Multiple Users
Several people can share a library. Registration is closed until an administrator enables it or adds users in the admin area.
Admin Created At Install
The admin account exists from first start with a generated password, so the first-run setup page is never open to visitors, and the gateway always blocks the upstream seed endpoint.
Recipes Survive A Restart
The database and uploaded photos live in two named volumes; in QA a recipe was still present after both containers restarted.

Everything You Need To Run Your Recipe Manager 24/7

Managed hosting for Vanilla Cookbook, so the parts that keep it online are not your problem.

Vanilla Cookbook v1.6.0 deployed instantly
Community image pinned by digest
Admin password generated for you
Kept behind xCloud nginx
Free SSL certificate
Server backups and snapshots
Server security updates included
Choose your server region
Unused balance refunded

What You Can Do With Vanilla Cookbook

Keep recipes on your own server
Recipes, accounts and uploaded photos sit on your own server, in volumes you back up yourself.
Bring over a Paprika collection
Import Paprika recipe files and recipes from web pages into one collection, and export them again when you want to move.
Read quantities in your units
Read the same recipe in metric or US volume and imperial display, with ingredient quantities converted for you.
Shop and plan together
Turn recipes into a shopping list, use the calendar view, and give each family member an account once you enable registration or add them.

Vanilla Cookbook vs Alternatives

Paprika: Paprika is a recipe app whose recipe export files Vanilla Cookbook can import, so an existing Paprika collection can move to a server you run.
Mealie: In a Vanilla Cookbook vs Mealie comparison, Mealie is another self-hosted recipe manager that imports from a URL, plans meals and builds shopping lists.
Tandoor Recipes: Tandoor Recipes has its own OneClick page. It is a self-hosted recipe manager with meal planning, shopping lists, imports, sharing and household collaboration.
KitchenOwl: KitchenOwl has its own OneClick page. Its catalogue entry describes grocery lists, recipe management, meal planning, household collaboration and expense tracking in one app.

Simple Pricing. Everything Included.

Dedicated Cloud VPS sizes, pre-configured for Vanilla Cookbook hosting. Pick the one that fits, and resize any time.

Cloud VPS 6 GB

Cloud VPS 16 GB

More headroom if Vanilla Cookbook sits alongside other household apps.

$59.99per month

16 GB RAM
6 vCPU cores
200 GB NVMe SSD
30 TB
Unlimited

Get started

Every size is a dedicated Cloud VPS we provision, patch, monitor and restore. Billed monthly with no lock-in — delete the server and the unused balance comes back to your account. Vanilla Cookbook itself is open source under GPL-3.0.

Docker hosting

Already Have a Server? Bring Your Own

Connect any VPS — DigitalOcean, Vultr, Linode, AWS, Hetzner or bare metal — and deploy Vanilla Cookbook on it through the same panel, for a per-server management fee instead of a Cloud VPS rental.

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The same platform, discounted at 6–10 servers.

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Agency

The same platform, discounted at 11+ servers.

$3per server / month

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All features included
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Priced per connected server, so your rate adjusts automatically as you add or remove servers. You pay your own provider for the server itself.

Self-managed hosting

Ready To Run Your Own Recipe Manager?

Vanilla Cookbook on xCloud runs on a dedicated Cloud VPS that we provision, patch, monitor and restore. Deploy faster. Own the server. Stay in control.

Fast Provisioning
Deploy faster using an xCloud Managed Server built with optimized stacks and high-speed SSDs.
Enterprise-grade security
Protect your infrastructure with a free SSL certificate and more advanced security features at no additional cost.
Intuitive Control Panel
From Server creation to application deployment, everything can be managed from our intuitive control panel.

Hear what people are saying about us

See why agencies, developers, startups, and growing businesses choose xCloud to power their projects.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Feel free to contact us with any questions or concerns you may have.

Can you self-host Vanilla Cookbook with Docker?

Yes, and this template is Vanilla Cookbook Docker hosting without the setup: the pinned community v1.6.0 image behind an nginx gateway, a one-shot init container that creates the administrator, two named volumes and HTTPS on your domain.

How much RAM does Vanilla Cookbook need?

The template asks for 384 MB of RAM, 1 CPU core and 2 GB of disk, and QA measured roughly 150 MiB idle. The 6 GB plan is the entry rung here, with room for photos and imports.

How do I sign in to Vanilla Cookbook the first time?

Use the username admin and the generated password shown in the protected installation credentials, then change the email and password in your profile. Give the first start about two minutes for migrations and the ingredient list to load.

Can strangers claim my Vanilla Cookbook instance before I do?

No. The administrator is created at install, so the first-run setup page redirects, and the nginx gateway always answers 403 to the upstream seed endpoint. That endpoint does not check whether setup has happened, which is why it is blocked.

Can I invite other people to Vanilla Cookbook?

Yes. New users cannot register themselves until an administrator enables registration or adds users in the admin area. REGISTRATION_ALLOWED in the environment overrides that setting, so leave it off unless you want open sign-up, and create accounts for family members yourself.

Can Vanilla Cookbook import from Paprika or web pages?

Yes. Upstream supports recipe import from web pages and Paprika files, and export. Uploads and imports are limited to 50 MB in this template, and you can raise BODY_SIZE_LIMIT and the proxy limit together if you need more, since a cookbook import of many recipes can be large.

What should I back up on a Vanilla Cookbook server?

Back up both volumes: vanilla_cookbook_db for the database and vanilla_cookbook_uploads for photos and imported files. The app writes weekly SQLite backups into the database volume, so they do not protect against losing that volume; keep an off-server copy too.

Backups in xCloud

How do I upgrade Vanilla Cookbook?

v1.6.0 stays pinned until you adopt a newer template version. Copy both volumes and read the project's notes first. Running sites are never upgraded automatically, and the site title is fixed at build time, so it will not change on upgrade.

Is Vanilla Cookbook free?

Yes. Vanilla Cookbook is GPL-3.0 software, so the code is free to run. Your spend is the dedicated Cloud VPS holding the database and photos, and nothing is charged per recipe or per user, however many family members join.

Does Vanilla Cookbook support single sign-on or AI recipe parsing?

Upstream lists GitHub and OIDC sign-in and AI recipe features as optional settings, but they were not exercised in QA, so this page makes no claim that they work on xCloud. Enable them only if you can test them.

Is there a Vanilla Cookbook cloud service?

Not through this page. Vanilla Cookbook cloud hosting here means your own copy runs on a Cloud VPS that xCloud prepares, with recipes and photos on volumes you own, registration controlled by you and no vendor account.

Can I cancel anytime?

Yes. There is no lock-in — cancel any time. Hosting is billed monthly and charged for what you actually use, so when you delete the server the unused balance is refunded to your account, less up to 10% in payment-processing fees.