Getting Started with Directus: Self-Host Your CMS in Minutes

Getting Started with Directus: Self-Host Your CMS in Minutes

Directus is one of the fastest ways to set up a full-featured backend for your application. In this quick-start guide, you will have Directus running on your server with Docker in under 5 minutes, complete with a PostgreSQL database and your first content collection.

Prerequisites

• Docker and Docker Compose installed on your server
• A server with at least 1 CPU core and 512MB RAM
• Basic familiarity with the command line

Step 1: Start Directus with Docker

The simplest way to run Directus is with Docker. Create a directory for Directus and run:

mkdir directus && cd directus

Then create a docker-compose.yml file:

services:
  directus:
    image: directus/directus:latest
    restart: unless-stopped
    ports:
      - 8080:8080
    volumes:
      - ./data/directus:/data
    environment:
      DB_CLIENT: sqlite3
      SECRET: change-me-to-a-random-secret
      ADMIN_EMAIL: admin@example.com
      ADMIN_PASSWORD: change-me

Then start it:

docker compose up -d

Open http://localhost:8080 in your browser and log in with the admin credentials you set above. You are now running Directus!

Step 2: Connect to PostgreSQL (Production Setup)

For production use, replace SQLite with PostgreSQL. Create a docker-compose.yml with both services:

services:
  postgres:
    image: postgres:16-alpine
    restart: unless-stopped
    volumes:
      - ./data/postgres:/var/lib/postgresql/data
    environment:
      POSTGRES_DB: directus
      POSTGRES_USER: directus
      POSTGRES_PASSWORD: secure-password

  directus:
    image: directus/directus:latest
    restart: unless-stopped
    ports:
      - 8080:8080
    volumes:
      - ./data/uploads:/data/uploads
    environment:
      DB_CLIENT: pg
      DB_HOST: postgres
      DB_PORT: 5432
      DB_DATABASE: directus
      DB_USER: directus
      DB_PASSWORD: secure-password
      SECRET: your-secure-random-secret
      ADMIN_EMAIL: admin@example.com
      ADMIN_PASSWORD: your-secure-password
    depends_on:
      - postgres

Step 3: Create Your First Collection

Once logged into the admin app:

1. Click the Settings gear icon in the sidebar
2. Go to Data Model and click Create Collection
3. Name it articles and click Save
4. Add fields like title (String), content (WYSIWYG), published_at (DateTime)
5. Go to the Content module and start adding entries

Your new collection is immediately available via the REST API at /items/articles and via GraphQL at /graphql. No code generation needed — Directus reads your schema and exposes it automatically.

Conclusion

Directus is remarkably simple to set up yet scales to enterprise use cases. With its automatic API generation, granular permissions, and extensible architecture, it is the ideal backend for any self-hosted application. Start with the Docker setup above and explore the admin interface — you will be surprised how much you can accomplish without writing a single line of backend code.