Where Does Self-Hosted Activepieces Store Data?
Activepieces keeps flows in Postgres (or ~/.activepieces for single-container installs). The folder alone is never the backup.
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Activepieces splits by install mode. Compose installs run app, worker, postgres, and redis containers: flows, runs, and connections live in the postgres_data volume, secrets in .env beside the compose file. The project folder itself holds no data, which the docs call out explicitly because people back up the wrong thing.
Single-container installs embed everything instead. The database (PGLite) and state live in ~/.activepieces on the host, mounted at /root/.activepieces. That folder is the whole backup: stop the container, copy it, done. Pick the mode deliberately. Single container is simple and trapped; compose is more moving parts with a real database to dump.
Where Activepieces stores this, by platform
~/.activepieces (single container)
Embedded PGLite database plus state for single-container installs. Stop the container and copy the folder. This mode cannot scale or migrate to Enterprise; compose is the path out.
postgres_data (Docker volume)
Flows, runs, and connections for compose installs. Dump with pg_dump from the postgres container. Back up .env beside it; the compose folder alone restores nothing.
Frequently asked questions
how do i back up self-hosted activepieces
Dump Postgres (pg_dump from the postgres container) and save .env with it. The install folder holds compose files and cache only. Single-container installs instead copy ~/.activepieces with the container stopped.
can i migrate from single container to compose later
Correct, by design. Single-container mode embeds PGLite and an in-memory queue for one machine. It cannot scale or move to Enterprise. Start with compose plus Postgres if you might ever outgrow one box.
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