How to Deploy Your First App on SonicBit: A Complete Step-by-Step Guide

Your first app deployment shouldn't require a computer science degree. Whether you want to stream movies with Plex, automate downloads with Sonarr, or spin up a personal RSS reader — SonicBit gets you there in minutes, no terminal required.

This guide walks you through deploying your very first app on SonicBit from scratch. By the end, you'll have a live, running application with a real HTTPS URL you can access from anywhere.

What You'll Need Before Starting

• A SonicBit account (the free plan works for this guide — it includes 1 app slot)
• About 10 minutes

That's genuinely it. No server knowledge, no Docker experience, no command line.

Step 1: Create Your SonicBit Account

Head to SonicBit and sign up. The free plan gives you 4GB of storage and 1 basic app slot — enough to follow along with this guide.

Once you've confirmed your email, log in and you'll land on the main dashboard.

!SonicBit dashboard overview

The dashboard is where everything lives: your seedbox, file manager, apps, and transfer tools. For now, focus on the Apps section in the left sidebar.

Step 2: Browse the App Library

Click Apps in the sidebar. You'll see SonicBit's library of 30+ one-click deployable apps organized into categories:

| Category | Example Apps | |----------|-------------| | Media | Plex, Jellyfin, Sonarr, Radarr, Overseerr | | Utilities | FreshRSS, IT Tools, PrivateBin, Jackett | | Development | Code Server, Gitea, PocketBase | | Monitoring | Uptime Kuma, Grafana | | Automation | n8n, Flowise |

Picking Your First App

For a beginner-friendly first deployment, try one of these lighter apps that run on any plan including free:

• FreshRSS — a self-hosted RSS reader, great for following news and blogs
• IT Tools — a collection of handy developer utilities
• PrivateBin — a private pastebin for sharing text securely

These are "light" apps, meaning they use minimal resources and deploy instantly. Heavier apps like Plex or Jellyfin require a performance app slot, which is available on paid plans.

For this guide, we'll deploy FreshRSS — but the steps are identical for any app in the library.

Step 3: Deploy the App

1. Find FreshRSS in the Utilities category (or use the search bar at the top)
2. Click on the app card to open its detail page

!App detail page with install button

1. Review the app description and resource requirements
2. Click Install App

SonicBit now handles everything behind the scenes:

• Pulls the Docker container
• Configures networking through Traefik reverse proxy
• Generates a subdomain for your app (e.g., freshrss-yourname.sonicbit.net)
• Issues a free SSL certificate via Let's Encrypt

This takes anywhere from 30 seconds to 2 minutes depending on the app. You'll see a progress indicator while it spins up.

!App installation progress

Step 4: Access Your Running App

Once the status changes to Running, click Open App. Your browser opens the app's full interface at its own HTTPS URL.

For FreshRSS, you'll see the initial setup wizard asking you to create an admin account. Fill in your credentials and you're in.

!FreshRSS running in browser

Your app is now live and accessible from any device — phone, tablet, laptop — as long as you have internet.

Step 5: Manage Your App

Back in the SonicBit dashboard, your app card shows real-time status. From here you can:

• Stop the app temporarily (stops resource usage but keeps your data)
• Restart it if something behaves unexpectedly
• View logs to diagnose any issues
• Uninstall to remove it completely and free up the app slot

!App management controls

Understanding App Slots

SonicBit uses app slots to manage how many apps you can run simultaneously. There are two types:

• Basic slots — for light apps (FreshRSS, IT Tools, PrivateBin, Jackett, Swing Music)
• Performance slots — for resource-intensive apps (Plex, Jellyfin, Emby, JDownloader2)

The free plan includes 1 basic slot. If you want to run Plex alongside Sonarr and Radarr, the Vertex plan at $3.49/month gives you 2 performance slots and 6 basic slots — enough for a full media automation setup.

Step 6: Configure a Domain (Optional)

By default, your app gets a SonicBit subdomain. If you own a custom domain, you can point it to your app through the app settings. SonicBit handles the SSL certificate automatically for custom domains too.

This is entirely optional for a first deployment — the default subdomain works perfectly well.

What Happens Under the Hood

You didn't touch a single config file, but here's what SonicBit actually did for you:

1. Pulled Docker image for FreshRSS
2. Created an isolated container with persistent storage
3. Registered a subdomain in Traefik reverse proxy
4. Configured HTTPS routing
5. Issued a Let's Encrypt SSL certificate
6. Started the container and verified it's healthy

Doing all of this manually on a VPS would take 30–60 minutes if you know what you're doing — and hours if you're learning. SonicBit compresses that into a single click.

Common Questions

Can I run multiple apps at once? Yes, as long as you have available app slots. The free plan supports 1 app. Paid plans start at 3–6 slots depending on the tier.

Where is my app's data stored? App data is stored on your SonicBit server. If you uninstall an app, the data is removed. Stop the app instead if you want to preserve everything while freeing up resources temporarily.

What if my app crashes? Check the app logs from the dashboard. Most issues are configuration-related on first launch. If the app stays in a crash loop, try uninstalling and reinstalling — it often clears state issues.

Can I access my app on mobile? Yes. Your app URL works in any browser. The SonicBit mobile app also lets you manage your apps, check status, and restart them from your phone.

What's Next?

Now that you know how deployments work, here are some natural next steps:

• Deploy Plex or Jellyfin to build a personal streaming server (requires a paid plan with a performance slot)
• Add Sonarr + Radarr to automate TV and movie downloads
• Set up Remote Upload to automatically back your downloads to Google Drive or Dropbox
• Explore the full app library at https://my.sonicbit.net to find tools that fit your workflow

The process is the same for every app in the library — install, open, configure. Once you've done it once, deploying your second and third apps takes under a minute.

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