How to Deploy an LLM Proxy on a 5 Dollar VPS

Many developers assume hosting an LLM gateway requires a large instance. However, by using a lightweight compiled proxy, you can easily deploy llm proxy 5 dollar vps setups that run stably.

For detailed pipeline patterns, see The Complete Architecture of Cost-Efficient LLM Pipelines.

The Resource Constraint Challenge

A standard \$5/month VPS (like those on DigitalOcean or Linode) typically provides:

• 1 vCPU
• 1 GB RAM

If you run a gateway written in Node.js or Java, it can consume a large portion of your memory when idle. Our Rust proxy consumes less than 15MB of RAM under load, leaving your VPS resources free for other services.

To understand how zero-copy stream piping keeps memory usage constant, read zero copy streaming llm proxy.

---

Deploy using Docker Compose

Mount your settings using docker-compose.yml:

version: '3.8'
services:
  kilovolt-proxy:
    image: yodsarun/kilovolt-proxy:latest
    ports:
      - "8080:8080"
    environment:
      - KILOVOLT_PORT=8080
      - KILOVOLT_DEFAULT_BUDGET=1.00
    deploy:
      resources:
        limits:
          memory: 20M
    restart: unless-stopped

Run docker compose up -d to secure your connections on low-cost hardware.

---