Host a Discord bot 24/7 on a VPS (discord.js or discord.py)

To host a Discord bot 24/7, run it on a Linux VPS as a systemd service. A bot is one long-running outbound connection to Discord’s gateway. It needs no open inbound port, little RAM, and a process manager that restarts it after a crash or a reboot. The whole setup is a user, a runtime, the code, a token file and a systemd unit, and it takes about fifteen minutes on Debian or Ubuntu. It works the same for discord.js (Node.js) and discord.py (Python).

/opt/mybot/app          your code (git clone)
/etc/mybot.env          DISCORD_TOKEN=...   (root only, mode 600)
mybot.service           runs the bot as user "bot", restarts it, starts it at boot
journalctl -u mybot -f  the bot's log

How do I set up a Discord bot on a VPS?

These steps assume a fresh Debian 12/13 or Ubuntu 22.04/24.04 server and an SSH login with sudo. If you are still logging in as root with a password, do the initial server setup first. Replace mybot with your bot’s name throughout.

1. 1Create a user for the bot

   The bot gets its own system account with no login shell, so a bug in the bot cannot touch your account or the rest of the system:

   sudo useradd --system --create-home --home-dir /opt/mybot --shell /usr/sbin/nologin bot

2. 2Install the runtime

   For discord.js, install a current Node.js LTS release. The distribution’s nodejs package is often too old, so use NodeSource; other options are in installing Node.js properly.

   sudo apt update && sudo apt install -y ca-certificates curl git
   curl -fsSL https://deb.nodesource.com/setup_lts.x | sudo -E bash -
   sudo apt install -y nodejs
   node --version

   For discord.py, the system Python 3 is recent enough, but packages go into a virtual environment: Debian 12/13 and Ubuntu 24.04 refuse a system-wide pip install (see externally-managed-environment).

   sudo apt update && sudo apt install -y python3 python3-venv git
   python3 --version

   On Rocky Linux 9, sudo dnf install -y python3 git is all discord.py needs, because Rocky’s Python includes the venv module. For Node.js, pick a current LTS stream from dnf module list nodejs and install it with sudo dnf module install -y nodejs:22 (use the number the list shows).

3. 3Get the code onto the server

   Work in a shell as the bot user, so every file it creates belongs to the bot:

   sudo -u bot -H bash                  # a shell as the bot user
   cd ~                                 # /opt/mybot
   git clone https://github.com/you/mybot.git app
   
   # discord.js
   cd ~/app && npm ci --omit=dev
   
   # discord.py
   python3 -m venv ~/venv
   ~/venv/bin/pip install -r ~/app/requirements.txt
   
   exit                                 # back to your own user

   A private repository needs a deploy key or an access token. Without git, copy the folder from your PC with scp -r ./mybot admin@203.0.113.10:/tmp/, then sudo mv /tmp/mybot /opt/mybot/app && sudo chown -R bot:bot /opt/mybot/app. npm ci needs a package-lock.json; without one, use npm install --omit=dev.

4. 4Put the token in a protected file

   The token is the bot’s password. Keep it out of the code and out of git, and store it in a file only root can read; systemd reads it before it switches to the bot user. Use an editor rather than echo, which would leave the token in your shell history:

   sudo install -m 600 -o root -g root /dev/null /etc/mybot.env
   sudo nano /etc/mybot.env
   # one line, no spaces around "=":
   # DISCORD_TOKEN=paste-the-token-here

   The bot then reads it from the environment:

   // discord.js
   client.login(process.env.DISCORD_TOKEN);
   
   # discord.py
   import os
   client.run(os.environ["DISCORD_TOKEN"])

5. 5Write a systemd unit

   [Unit]
   Description=mybot Discord bot
   After=network-online.target
   Wants=network-online.target
   
   [Service]
   Type=simple
   User=bot
   Group=bot
   WorkingDirectory=/opt/mybot/app
   EnvironmentFile=/etc/mybot.env
   # discord.js
   ExecStart=/usr/bin/node /opt/mybot/app/index.js
   # discord.py: use these two lines instead
   # ExecStart=/opt/mybot/venv/bin/python /opt/mybot/app/bot.py
   # Environment=PYTHONUNBUFFERED=1
   Restart=always
   RestartSec=10
   NoNewPrivileges=true
   PrivateTmp=true
   ProtectSystem=full
   ProtectHome=true
   
   [Install]
   WantedBy=multi-user.target

   ExecStart needs absolute paths; command -v node prints the right one. The Python line uses the venv’s own interpreter, so no activate is needed, and PYTHONUNBUFFERED=1 makes print() output reach the log right away. RestartSec=10 keeps a crash loop from hammering Discord’s API. Discord temporarily blocks IP addresses that send too many invalid requests, and a bot that restarts every second with a bad token can get there. If your code lives under /home, remove ProtectHome=true. Every option in the unit is explained in how to create a systemd service.

6. 6Start it and enable it at boot

   sudo systemctl daemon-reload
   sudo systemctl enable --now mybot
   systemctl status mybot --no-pager

7. 7Read the logs

   sudo journalctl -u mybot -f                 # follow live
   sudo journalctl -u mybot --since "1 hour ago"

Why does my bot go offline when I close SSH?

Because you started it in your SSH session. A program started with node index.js or python3 bot.py belongs to that session, and when the session ends the program ends with it. nohup, screen and tmux survive the logout, but not a crash or a reboot, and nothing tells you the bot is down. The systemd unit above covers all three cases.

For Node.js bots, PM2 is a common alternative. It restarts the bot, keeps a process list and can start everything at boot:

sudo npm install -g pm2
sudo install -m 600 -o bot -g bot /dev/null /opt/mybot/.env
sudo nano /opt/mybot/.env                 # DISCORD_TOKEN=...
sudo -u bot -H bash -c 'cd ~/app && pm2 start index.js --name mybot --node-args="--env-file=/opt/mybot/.env" && pm2 save'
sudo env PATH=$PATH:/usr/bin pm2 startup systemd -u bot --hp /opt/mybot

PM2 does not read /etc/mybot.env, so the token goes into /opt/mybot/.env, owned by bot with mode 600, and Node’s own --env-file option loads it. Use PM2 or systemd, not both. For a single bot, the plain systemd unit is one moving part fewer.

Which ports do I need to open for a Discord bot?

None for the bot itself. It connects out to Discord over HTTPS and a secure WebSocket, and a default firewall allows outgoing connections. Inbound, you only need SSH. Two exceptions:

• A web dashboard or any HTTP API the bot serves: put it behind a reverse proxy and open 443.
• An Interactions Endpoint URL, if you receive slash commands over HTTP instead of the gateway: Discord must reach that URL over HTTPS, so open 443 for it.

Everything else stays closed. The UFW setup guide sets that up without locking you out of SSH.

How much server does a Discord bot need?

• A small bot, with commands, moderation and a few servers, runs on the smallest VPS plan. The runtime and the library typically use tens of megabytes to a couple of hundred, depending on how much the library caches.
• Large bots grow with the number of servers and members they cache. Memory is usually the first limit; trimming the cache in the library’s options helps more than a bigger plan.
• Voice and music bots need ffmpeg (sudo apt install ffmpeg) plus the voice extras your library documents. They need noticeably more CPU, because every stream is decoded and encoded live.

Node.js and Python run your bot’s code mostly on one core, so the speed of a single core matters more than the number of cores until you shard. A typical bot is idle most of the time, so the disk mainly needs room for logs and perhaps a SQLite database.

How do I update the bot?

sudo -u bot -H bash -c 'cd ~/app && git pull'

# if dependencies changed
sudo -u bot -H bash -c 'cd ~/app && npm ci --omit=dev'
# or: sudo -u bot -H bash -c '~/venv/bin/pip install -r ~/app/requirements.txt'

sudo systemctl restart mybot
sudo journalctl -u mybot -n 30 --no-pager      # did it come back?

Update the library itself regularly too. Discord retires old API versions and changes gateway and voice behaviour from time to time, and an outdated discord.js or discord.py is a common reason a bot that ran for months suddenly stops connecting.

Why does the bot keep restarting or not respond?

• Invalid token (“An invalid token was provided” in discord.js, LoginFailure: Improper token has been passed in discord.py): the token was reset or pasted with extra characters. Reset it under Bot in the Developer Portal and update /etc/mybot.env. Discord’s API answers a bad token with HTTP 401, which 401 Unauthorized explains.
• “Used disallowed intents” in discord.js, or PrivilegedIntentsRequired in discord.py: the code asks for a privileged intent, such as Message Content or Server Members, that is not switched on for the bot in the Developer Portal.
• Online but ignores commands: prefix commands such as !help need the Message Content intent, and slash commands only appear after the bot has registered them with Discord. If new ones do not show up, reload the Discord client with Ctrl+R.
• Rate limited (HTTP 429 in the logs): the bot sends more requests than Discord allows. discord.js and discord.py wait and retry on their own; a bot that keeps hitting the limit needs fewer calls. See 429 Too Many Requests.
• Killed without an error: the server ran out of memory. Check sudo journalctl -k | grep -i oom and see why Linux kills your process.

When does a bot need sharding?

Discord requires sharding once a bot is in 2,500 servers. Each shard is a separate gateway connection that handles part of the servers. discord.js ships a ShardingManager that runs shards as separate processes, and discord.py has AutoShardedClient; both can ask Discord for the recommended shard count. Shards in separate processes are where a bot finally uses more than one core, so this is the point to add vCores rather than earlier.

Where should you host a Discord bot?

Any KVM VPS with a current Linux runs the setup above. On VMHeaven, the Standard KVM line starts at €4.99 a month in Amsterdam. Frankfurt, the premium location, is priced on its own, higher row; VPS in Germany shows which lines are in stock there. For busy bots and music bots, Hi-CPU KVM puts fewer vCores per plan on AMD EPYC (the 7443 in Amsterdam), for software that leans on one or two cores. You can pay by card, PayPal or crypto (Bitcoin, Ethereum, USDT, Litecoin, Monero and more), with no ID check; the crypto VPS page walks through the crypto checkout. The Discord bot hosting page compares the plans.

Frequently asked