Self-Hosting – GudCal

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Self-Hosting

Deploy GudCal on your own infrastructure for your organization.

GudCal is source-available under Business Source License 1.1. You can run it on your own server, VPS, or container platform with full control over your data.

License (read this first)

Allowed

Self-host GudCal for your own organization or personal use
Modify the source for internal needs
Use scheduling inside a larger product where scheduling is not the primary offering

Not allowed

Offer GudCal (or a substantially similar derivative) as a competing hosted Calendly-style service to third parties
Sell access to a hosted/managed GudCal

On 18 February 2030 the licensed work converts to Apache 2.0. Until then, gudcal.com is the commercial hosted product. Full text: LICENSE.md.

Prerequisites

Node.js 18.17 or later (20.x from .nvmrc is what CI uses)
PostgreSQL 14 or later (Neon, Supabase, or self-hosted)
pnpm package manager

Quick Start

Clone the public repository:

git clone https://github.com/gudlab/gudcal-core.git
cd gudcal-core

Install dependencies:

pnpm install

Copy the environment file and configure it:

cp .env.example .env.local

Set up the database:

pnpm prisma generate
pnpm prisma db push

Start the application:

pnpm build
pnpm start

Docker Compose is usually faster for a first run — see the README.

Environment Variables

These are the required environment variables for self-hosting:

Variable	Description
`DATABASE_URL`	PostgreSQL connection string
`NEXTAUTH_SECRET` / `AUTH_SECRET`	Random secret for session encryption
`NEXTAUTH_URL`	Your deployment URL (e.g. `https://cal.example.com`)
`NEXT_PUBLIC_APP_URL`	Same as NEXTAUTH_URL
`ENCRYPTION_KEY`	32-byte hex key (64 hex chars) for encrypting calendar tokens

Optional Variables

Variable	Description
`GOOGLE_CLIENT_ID` / `GOOGLE_CLIENT_SECRET`	Google login
`RESEND_API_KEY`	Transactional email
`STRIPE_*`	Cloud billing only — omit for self-host
`GOOGLE_CALENDAR_CLIENT_ID` / `SECRET`	Google Calendar sync
`CRON_SECRET`	Reminder cron endpoint
`NEXT_PUBLIC_IS_SELF_HOSTED`	Set to `true` on your instance

Self-Hosted vs Cloud

Set NEXT_PUBLIC_IS_SELF_HOSTED=true. That removes hosted plan caps on core scheduling (event types, calendars, availability, organizations). It does not turn your box into GudCal Cloud.

	Your self-host (own org)	gudcal.com
Event types, bookings, calendars	Uncapped	Free / Pro / Team limits
Organizations	Uncapped	Team ($20/mo)
Hosted MCP at `gudcal.com/api/mcp`	n/a	Team
`/api/mcp` on your URL	Ships in this source; BSL allows it for your org	Same codebase
Analytics, custom domains	Hosted extras	Pro / Team

Do not use a self-host to sell scheduling to other companies. That is the BSL restriction.

Generating an Encryption Key

node -e "console.log(require('crypto').randomBytes(32).toString('hex'))"

Reverse Proxy

If you run GudCal behind a reverse proxy (nginx, Caddy, etc.), make sure to:

Forward the Host header
Set X-Forwarded-Proto to https
Set X-Forwarded-For to the client IP
Configure WebSocket passthrough if needed

Installation API Reference