Dashy Hosting

How Dashy works

Dashy organises content into sections, items, sub-items, and optional pages. Each item can open a service, document, or external site, while search and keyboard shortcuts make a large catalogue faster to navigate. Themes, icons, layouts, and alternate views let the same configuration behave as a personal start page, service directory, or wall display.

Status indicators and widgets can request data from compatible external services. Some widgets use public APIs, while others need a hostname, token, password, proxy, or CORS support. Dashy displays the result but does not create or manage the monitored service. Operators must review every external request and avoid exposing secrets in browser-delivered configuration.

Key Dashy features

Built-in authentication can add a login and visibility rules, while pages separate audiences or topics. The REST API can read or update configuration, and backup or restore tools help move settings. These features increase flexibility but also make configuration, credentials, and user roles security-sensitive rather than purely decorative dashboard content.

The catalogue export lists 4096 MB for Dashy, but plan-mapping.md v2 explicitly overrides the application value to 1024 MB and Plan 1 after upstream documentation reported much lower runtime needs. The final page follows that approved mapping. Dashy is mapped without a PostgreSQL or MariaDB service. External status platforms, API subscriptions, and the monitored systems themselves are not bundled.

Who uses Dashy

Home users collect media, storage, automation, and network links in one page. Operations teams publish a service directory with status indicators, while offices use pages for staff tools, policies, support resources, and shared search. A wall display can show selected widgets without becoming the monitoring system itself.

Dashy is not an uptime guarantee, alerting service, infrastructure inventory, password manager, or replacement for the applications shown in widgets. A green indicator reflects the configured check at that moment, and external APIs can fail, rate-limit, or expose less information than expected.

Self-hosting Dashy: requirements and cost

Dashboard size, icon assets, page count, widgets, status polling, proxy requests, REST activity, authentication, and simultaneous viewers determine resource use. The approved mapping uses 1024 MB and Plan 1 rather than the export’s 4096 MB figure. The approved Dashy mapping does not call for PostgreSQL or MariaDB. Aggressive polling and numerous server-side widget proxies can create considerably more load than static links.

On AvaHost, Dashy uses Plan 1 at €2. The hosted Dashy package includes one-click deployment, a custom domain with automated HTTPS, automatic application updates, and scheduled backups. The hosted package does not include the services shown on the dashboard, external API subscriptions, monitoring guarantees, or a secrets vault. Review widget credentials, use read-only tokens where possible, and confirm that guest visibility does not expose internal names, addresses, or operational details.