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useSend

Stack

Email Newsletters

useSend (formerly Unsend) - the open-source Resend alternative: transactional email API, campaigns, contacts, and delivery analytics, with the actual sending done by your AWS SES (~$0.10 per 1,000 emails - deliverability is SES's job, the

Configuration

Type
Compose
Platform
linux
Env vars
AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID=''AWS_DEFAULT_REGION=us-east-1AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY=''GITHUB_ID=''GITHUB_SECRET=''NEXTAUTH_SECRET=''NEXTAUTH_URL=http://localhost:5000REDIS_AUTH=# openssl rand -hex 24
Source
Repo

Template by deployable-sh·Source

Report issue

Services

usesend

Configuration

Image
usesend/usesend:v1.9.5
Command
sh,-c,cd /app && pnpx [email protected] db push --schema ./apps/web/prisma/schema.prisma --skip-generate && node apps/web/server.js
Ports
5000:5000
Env vars
HOSTNAME=0.0.0.0NEXTAUTH_URL=${NEXTAUTH_URL:-http://localhost:5000}NEXTAUTH_SECRET=${NEXTAUTH_SECRET}DATABASE_URL=postgresql://usesend:usesend-local-only@db:5432/usesendREDIS_URL=redis://broker:6379AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID=${AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID:-}AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY=${AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY:-}AWS_DEFAULT_REGION=${AWS_DEFAULT_REGION:-us-east-1}GITHUB_ID=${GITHUB_ID:-}GITHUB_SECRET=${GITHUB_SECRET:-}
Restart
unless-stopped

Image details

Pulls: 18.8k
User: usesend
Created: Apr 20, 2025
Updated: 24 days ago
Status: active

broker

Configuration

Image
valkey/valkey:8
Command
sh,-c,exec valkey-server --maxmemory-policy noeviction
Ports
6379:6379
Restart
unless-stopped

Image details

Pulls: 302.3M
User: valkey
Created: Apr 02, 2024
Updated: 11 hours ago
Status: active

db

Configuration

Image
postgres:16
Volumes
/var/lib/postgresql/data : dbdata
Env vars
POSTGRES_USER=usesendPOSTGRES_PASSWORD=usesend-local-onlyPOSTGRES_DB=usesend
Restart
unless-stopped

Image details

Pulls: 11.6B
User: stackbrew
Created: Jun 05, 2014
Updated: 1 hour ago
Status: active

Standalone Install

Select an install method, to see config/commands for deploying useSend

Installation method

Install on Portainer

Import all app templates into your Portainer instance, for easy 1-click deploys

  1. Ensure both Docker and Portainer are installed, and up-to-date
  2. Log into your Portainer web UI
  3. Under Settings → App Templates, paste the below URL
  4. Head to Home → App Templates, and the list of apps will show up
  5. Select useSend, fill in any config options, and hit Deploy

Template Import URL

https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Lissy93/portainer-templates/main/templates.json
Show Me demo
Original stackfile

The compose file this template deploys, straight from its repo:

name: usesend

services:
  usesend:
    image: usesend/usesend:v1.9.5
    command: ["sh", "-c", "cd /app && pnpx [email protected] db push --schema ./apps/web/prisma/schema.prisma --skip-generate && node apps/web/server.js"]
    restart: unless-stopped
    environment:
      HOSTNAME: "0.0.0.0"
      NEXTAUTH_URL: ${NEXTAUTH_URL:-http://localhost:5000}
      NEXTAUTH_SECRET: ${NEXTAUTH_SECRET}
      DATABASE_URL: postgresql://usesend:usesend-local-only@db:5432/usesend
      REDIS_URL: redis://broker:6379
      AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID: ${AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID:-}
      AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY: ${AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY:-}
      AWS_DEFAULT_REGION: ${AWS_DEFAULT_REGION:-us-east-1}
      GITHUB_ID: ${GITHUB_ID:-}
      GITHUB_SECRET: ${GITHUB_SECRET:-}
    ports:
      - "5000:5000"
    depends_on:
      - db
      - broker

  broker:
    image: valkey/valkey:8
    command: ["sh", "-c", "exec valkey-server --maxmemory-policy noeviction"]
    restart: unless-stopped
    ports:
      - "6379:6379"

  db:
    image: postgres:16
    restart: unless-stopped
    environment:
      POSTGRES_USER: usesend
      POSTGRES_PASSWORD: usesend-local-only
      POSTGRES_DB: usesend
    volumes:
      - dbdata:/var/lib/postgresql/data

volumes:
  dbdata:

Or deploy it directly from the source:

git clone https://github.com/deployable-sh/stacks
cd stacks
docker compose -f usesend/compose.yaml up -d

More install options in our documentation.

Container Documentation

usesend Documentation

broker Documentation

Valkey is a high-performance data structure server that primarily serves key/value workloads.

db Documentation

The PostgreSQL object-relational database system provides reliability and data integrity.

Serve useSend on your own domain behind Caddy, Nginx or Traefik. Fill in your domain and copy the result. It's a starting point, some apps need their own base URL or extra headers set too.

Proxying usesend.example.com to http://usesend:5000

Add this to your Caddyfile

usesend.example.com {
	reverse_proxy http://usesend:5000
}

Check the logs first

Nine times out of ten the logs tell you exactly what went wrong.

  • In Portainer, go to Containers, click the container, then Logs. Or run docker logs <container>
  • Exit codes help too: 137 means killed, usually out of memory. 126 or 127 means the command inside the image is broken.

Port already in use

If deployment fails with "Bind for 0.0.0.0:5000 failed: port is already allocated", something else on your server is using that port.

  • Find what's using it: sudo ss -tlnp | grep :5000
  • Stop the other service, or pick a different host port. In 5000:5000 only the left number is yours to change, the right one belongs to the app.

Running but the page won't load

The container is up but nothing appears in your browser.

  • Use your server's real IP: http://your-server-ip:5000. The 0.0.0.0 link Portainer shows isn't a real address.
  • Give it a minute after first deploy, usesend can take a while to initialise.
  • Make sure your firewall allows the port, e.g. sudo ufw allow 5000

Image won't pull

Test the pull directly on the host: docker pull usesend/usesend:v1.9.5

  • "manifest unknown" means the tag no longer exists.
  • "toomanyrequests" is the Docker Hub rate limit. Log in with docker login to raise it.
  • "no space left on device" means a full disk. Reclaim space with docker system prune

"exec format error"

This means the image was built for a different CPU architecture than your server.

  • Check yours with uname -m: x86_64 is amd64, aarch64 is arm64. Raspberry Pi and other ARM boards are the usual culprits.

Container keeps restarting

The unless-stopped restart policy relaunches the app after every crash, so the real error can scroll past.

  • Check the logs right after a restart, the last few lines before it died are the useful ones.
  • Get the exit code with docker inspect <container> --format '{{.State.ExitCode}}'
  • Still stuck? Redeploy once with the restart policy set to no so the failure stays visible.

Stack won't deploy

Compose stacks fail fast on small mistakes, and Portainer shows the reason just above the editor.

  • YAML only accepts spaces for indentation, a single tab breaks the whole file.

Raise an issue

Found something which isn't working as it should? Here's how to report it.

A Compose stack

useSend is a Compose stack, a set of containers (3 of them) defined in one file and brought up together by Portainer, then started and stopped as a single app.

The services

This stack is built from 3 containers that run side by side. Here's each one, with the image it runs and anything it waits for first:

  • usesend runs usesend/usesend:v1.9.5, starts after db, broker
  • broker runs valkey/valkey:8
  • db runs postgres:16

Ports

A port is the door the app answers on. A mapping like 5000:5000 means it's reachable on port 5000 of your server, where the left number is yours to change and the right one belongs to the app. It opens:

  • 5000:5000
  • 6379:6379

Volumes

A volume is where useSend keeps its files so they survive an update or a restart. Without one, anything it saves would sit inside the container and vanish the moment it's recreated. This template mounts:

  • /var/lib/postgresql/data kept in the dbdata volume Docker manages

Environment variables

Environment variables are the settings you hand over when you deploy, things like a password or a timezone. useSend takes 13 of them, all with defaults you can leave alone or tweak:

  • HOSTNAME, defaults to 0.0.0.0
  • NEXTAUTH_URL, defaults to http://localhost:5000
  • NEXTAUTH_SECRET, pulled from your own environment
  • DATABASE_URL, defaults to postgresql://usesend:usesend-local-only@db:5432/usesend
  • REDIS_URL, defaults to redis://broker:6379
  • AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID, pulled from your own environment
  • AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY, pulled from your own environment
  • AWS_DEFAULT_REGION, defaults to us-east-1
  • GITHUB_ID, pulled from your own environment
  • GITHUB_SECRET, pulled from your own environment
  • POSTGRES_USER, defaults to usesend
  • POSTGRES_PASSWORD, defaults to usesend-local-only
  • POSTGRES_DB, defaults to usesend

Restart policy

The restart policy here is unless-stopped, so Docker restarts useSend after a crash or reboot, but leaves it off when you stop it on purpose. You can change this on the deploy screen. The choices are no (never restart), on-failure (only after a crash), unless-stopped (restart unless you stop it), and always (bring it back no matter what).

Networking

Portainer puts these services on one shared private network, so they can find each other by name (like usesend) while only the ports above are open to you.

Platform

The platform is linux, the kind of system the container is built to run on. Docker and Portainer handle this on a normal Linux server.

Portainer app templates

Zooming out, this whole page comes from a Portainer app template: a short recipe telling Portainer how to set useSend up. Add the template list to Portainer once, then deploying useSend is a click rather than a wall of config.