The Three Options At a Glance

Option 1: Frappe Cloud

The official managed platform, run by the team that builds ERPNext. You get one-click version upgrades, automated backups, staging environments, and the confidence that whoever is maintaining your infrastructure also writes the software.

Custom Frappe apps deploy from a Git repository, so this is not a locked-down environment - but you do not get root, and there are constraints on what you can install alongside ERPNext. For the large majority of implementations, that constraint costs you nothing.

Option 2: Self-Hosted

A VPS, a dedicated server, or on-premise hardware. Full root access, complete freedom, lowest raw infrastructure cost - and every operational responsibility lands on you.

What that responsibility actually contains, in practice:

• Backups that are verified, not just scheduled. The commonest self-hosting disaster is not a crash. It is discovering during a crash that the backup cron has been failing silently since March.
• SSL renewal. Let's Encrypt certificates expire every 90 days. Automate it, then monitor the automation.
• Version upgrades. Major ERPNext versions require a tested upgrade path, ideally rehearsed on a staging copy first.
• OS patching and firewall rules. An ERP holds your entire financial history. It should not be reachable on port 3306 from the open internet.
• Monitoring. You need to know the disk is 90% full before the database refuses writes, not after.

Option 3: Partner-Managed Hosting

Your implementation partner provisions a cloud instance - typically AWS Mumbai, Azure Central India or a comparable region - and takes on monitoring, backups, SSL, patching and upgrades under an AMC.

The advantage over Frappe Cloud is control: root access for custom integrations, freedom to co-locate other services, and a support relationship with someone who already knows your configuration. The advantage over self-hosting is that the operational work has an owner and an SLA.

The thing to check before signing: who holds the credentials, and can you leave? A reputable partner gives you server access, hands over the database on request, and does not treat your infrastructure as a retention mechanism.

See how Exalix Tech handles managed ERPNext hosting →

Server Sizing: What You Actually Need

ERPNext is more sensitive to RAM and disk speed than to CPU core count. These are practical starting points, not hard rules - real requirements depend on transaction volume, report complexity and how many custom scripts run on save.

Storage grows faster than people expect once file attachments and backups accumulate. Budget for growth, and keep backups off the application server.

What Hosting Actually Costs

The ERPNext licence is ₹0. That is real - GPL v3, unlimited users, no per-seat fee. Your hosting budget therefore has only two components:

• Infrastructure. The instance itself, plus storage and backup egress. Priced by your cloud provider and predictable from the sizing table above.
• Management. Either a Frappe Cloud subscription, a partner AMC, or the internal salary cost of whoever maintains it - which is the line people forget to count.

Self-hosting looks cheapest on a spreadsheet precisely because the second component is invisible until something breaks at month-end close.

Building a full ERP budget rather than just the hosting line? Use the ERPNext Cost Calculator →

Backups, Security & SSL

Role-based access inside ERPNext deserves a specific mention. Hosting security protects the server; it does nothing about a junior user with permission to delete submitted invoices. Both layers matter.

The Upgrade Problem

Upgrades are where hosting choices reveal themselves. ERPNext ships major versions regularly, and staying current matters for security patches and compliance updates - GST rules change, and the India Compliance app follows the current version.

The complication is customisation. Configuration and properly built Frappe apps survive upgrades cleanly. Direct modifications to core code do not - they break, and they break at the worst time. This is why our implementations follow an ERPNext-first approach: configure before coding, and when code is genuinely necessary, put it in a separate app rather than the core.

Whichever hosting route you take, insist on a staging environment. Upgrading production directly, on a Friday, without a rehearsal, is how a two-hour job becomes a lost weekend.

Data Residency & Indian Servers

For most Indian SMEs, hosting in-region is simply the sensible default - lower latency for users in Ahmedabad, Mumbai or Bengaluru, and a straightforward answer when a customer or auditor asks where the data physically sits. AWS Mumbai, Azure Central India and Google Cloud Mumbai all serve this well, as do several domestic providers.

If your business has contractual data-residency obligations, confirm the specific region and backup replication targets in writing before provisioning. Backups sometimes replicate to a different geography than the primary instance, which surprises people during audits.

The Decision Matrix

One pattern worth naming: many SMEs start partner-managed during implementation and the first year of stabilisation, then move to self-hosted once their team has grown into the capability. That sequencing works well. The reverse - self-hosting from day one with nobody assigned to it - is the one we get called in to rescue.

See our Support & AMC coverage →  ·  Full implementation scope →