Moving My Dockerized Backend from Azure VPS to a Cheaper VPS

• 12 May 2025
• experience,
• django,
• docker,
• devOps

Introduction#

After running my backend server on an Azure Student VPS for about three months with a $100 budget, I started looking for a cheaper, long-term solution. My goal was to find a VPS that costs around $5–$10 per month and is easy to maintain for small projects.

Here’s how I migrated my Dockerized Django backend from Azure to another VPS, and what I learned from the experience.

My Azure VPS Specs#

I used Azure's student subscription for three months. Here were the server specs:

• 1 vCPU
• 2 GB RAM (no swap)
• 32 GB SSD
• OS: Ubuntu Server
• Services: MySQL, Nginx, Redis, Python (Pipenv), Git

htop

df -H

I found that this configuration worked well for my small backend. So, I looked for a similar VPS spec in a more affordable price range.

Researching Affordable VPS Options#

I checked several providers and compared their plans:

_That is the result was returned by Perplexity, and I do not confirm the research yet! _

I also looked at VinaHost, a local Vietnamese provider. Their VPS offers:

• 3 vCPU

• 3 GB RAM

• Cost: 250,000 VND/month (pre-tax)

• 50% discount for 6–12 month subscriptions

With the discount, I paid 125,000 VND/month ($5.10 per month) for 6 months. This plan gave me more resources at a cheaper rate — within my budget and flexible enough to adapt to future growth or changes.

Why I Dockerized My Backend#

Each time I moved my backend before, I had to manually reinstall and configure everything:

• Git

• MySQL

• Python + Pipenv

• Nginx

• Redis

• SSL with Let's Encrypt

It was time-consuming and error-prone.

So, I decided to Dockerize my Django backend. I had some experience using Docker from my company’s projects (NestJS backend), where we used docker compose to run dev and prod environments easily.

I also learned that some frontend job interviews ask about Docker — so it’s a good skill to have.

I plan to write another blog post specifically on Dockerizing a Django backend soon.

Migration Steps#

I documented my process for migrating the backend from Azure to the new VPS.

✅ On the Old VPS#

1. Backup the MySQL database to a .sql file.

2. Backup Let's Encrypt certificates.

3. Save the Nginx configuration.

4. Write Dockerfile and docker-compose.yml.

   • I used Claude AI to help generate the base files.

   • I modified them to fit my tech stack (Django, MySQL, Nginx, Redis).

5. Test the Docker setup on my local machine using WSL on Windows.

   • Everything worked smoothly, so I proceeded with the migration.

🚚 On the New VPS#

1. Bought the new VPS from VinaHost.

2. Set up GitHub SSH to clone my project repo.

3. Set up MySQL container and created the database and user.

4. Imported the .sql backup into the database container.

5. Ran docker-compose up -d to start the app stack.

6. Handled Nginx conflict:

   • The VPS already had Nginx running on port 80.

   • I deactivated the VPS-level Nginx service before using the containerized one.

7. Pointed the domain DNS to the new VPS IP.

8. Restored SSL certificates from the backup.

Boom — my backend was live again!

Final Thoughts#

This was my first time using Docker to migrate a server, and it made the process much easier and faster.

• No more manually setting up services

• Easy to test locally with docker compose

• More flexibility to scale or move in the future

Thanks to VinaHost’s 50% discount, I got a 3GB RAM / 3vCPU VPS for just ~$5.10/month, well within my budget.

Feedback Welcome!#

I’m still new to Docker, so if you notice any mistakes or have suggestions, feel free to leave a comment. I'd love to learn and improve my setup.

Thanks for reading! 🚀

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