Vanilla Cookbook Hosting Live In 5 Minutes

Deploy Vanilla Cookbook hosting and keep your recipe collection on your own server instead of a hosted service. xCloud runs the pinned Vanilla Cookbook v1.6.0 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. Its upstream README describes the aim as complexity under the hood and an uncluttered interface: most of the work of structuring messy web recipes is done for you from the text, so you can get cooking in a few clicks.

You can scrape a recipe by pasting a URL or using a browser bookmarklet, import from several formats including Paprika, scale and convert ingredients, and keep nutrition, shopping lists and a calendar alongside. This template deploys version v1.6.0.

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
30+ server locations
Unused balance refunded

What You Can Do With Vanilla Cookbook

Keep your collection off a hosted service
Recipes, accounts and uploaded photos sit on your own server, in volumes you back up yourself.
Bring a Paprika library with you
Import Paprika recipe files and recipes from web pages into one collection, and export them again when you want to move.
Cook from metric or US measurements
Read the same recipe in metric or US volume and imperial display, with ingredient quantities converted for you.
Plan the shop for a household
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: A recipe app whose recipe export files Vanilla Cookbook can import, so an existing Paprika collection can move to a server you run.
Mealie: Another self-hosted recipe manager that imports from a URL, plans meals and builds shopping lists.
Tandoor Recipes: A self-hosted recipe manager with meal planning, shopping lists, imports, sharing and household collaboration.
KitchenOwl: Self-hosted 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 and is stated by the template README to be 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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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

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Frequently Asked Questions

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

How do I sign in the first time?

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

Can strangers claim my 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. This was confirmed right after install in QA.

What runs alongside Vanilla Cookbook?

A small nginx gateway in front of the app, plus a one-shot init container that creates the administrator and then exits. The application container itself is not exposed to the host; the web interface is published through xCloud-managed HTTPS.

Can I invite other people?

Yes. New users cannot self-register until an administrator enables registration or adds users in the admin area.

Can I import from Paprika or from web pages?

Yes, upstream supports recipe import from web pages and Paprika, and exports. Uploads and imports are limited to 50 MB in this template.

What should I back up?

Both volumes: vanilla_cookbook_db (the database) and vanilla_cookbook_uploads (uploaded photos). The app also writes its own weekly database backup into the database volume, which does not protect against losing that volume.

Backups in xCloud

What survives a restart?

Data on both named volumes. In QA a recipe was still present after both containers restarted.

Does xCloud automatically back up or update Vanilla Cookbook?

No. The template pins v1.6.0 by immutable digest, so existing sites are not automatically upgraded. Back up first, read the upstream release notes, then bump the readable tag and digest together on your own schedule. Server-level backups and snapshots are available on every Cloud VPS.

Does it support single sign-on or AI recipe parsing?

Upstream lists sign-in providers 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.

What are the server requirements, and why does this page sell 6 GB?

The template's baseline asks for 1 CPU core, 384 MB of RAM and 2 GB of disk; measured idle use in QA was roughly 150 MiB. This page sells the 6 GB tier as the entry rung of the OneClick plans, with ample headroom above that baseline.

Is xCloud officially partnered with Vanilla Cookbook?

No. No official partnership or endorsement between xCloud and the Vanilla Cookbook project has been verified. This is a deployment and server-management option for the open-source project.

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.