Self Hosting

Host a Flet app on your own server with NGINX.

There are free and inexpensive cloud server tiers available at AWS, Oracle, Linode, and more.

Setup Flet Environment

requirements.txt and virtualenv

Create requirements.txt with a list of application dependencies. At minimum it should contain flet module:

flet>=0.2.4

Create a virtualenv and install requirements:

python -m venv .venv
source .venv/bin/activate
pip install -r requirements.txt

Sample main.py Flet app

import flet as ft
import os


# set Flet path to an empty string to serve at the root URL (e.g., https://lizards.ai/)
# or a folder/path to serve beneath the root (e.g., https://lizards.ai/ui/path
DEFAULT_FLET_PATH = ''  # or 'ui/path'
DEFAULT_FLET_PORT = 8502


def main(page: ft.Page):
    page.title = "You Enjoy Mychatbot"
    page.add(ft.Text("Reba put a stopper in the bottom of the tub"))


if __name__ == "__main__":
    flet_path = os.getenv("FLET_PATH", DEFAULT_FLET_PATH)
    flet_port = int(os.getenv("FLET_PORT", DEFAULT_FLET_PORT))
    ft.app(name=flet_path, target=main, view=None, port=flet_port)

Automatically Start Flet Server

Create systemd unit file

Automatically start the Flet server using a systemd service unit file flet.service.

Setup below assumes your flet app script is defined in $HOME/flet-app/main.py. Replace User, Group, WorkingDirectory, etc. as per your setup.

[Unit]
Description=Flet Server
After=network.target

[Service]
User=ubuntu
Group=ubuntu
WorkingDirectory=/home/ubuntu/flet-app
Environment="PATH=/home/ubuntu/flet-app/.venv/bin"
ExecStart=/home/ubuntu/flet-app/.venv/bin/python /home/ubuntu/flet-app/main.py

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Enable the Flet server

cd /etc/systemd/system
sudo ln -s /home/ubuntu/flet-app/flet.service
sudo systemctl start flet
sudo systemctl enable flet
sudo systemctl status flet

NGINX Proxy Setup

NGINX will proxy the Flet app and the websocket.

In your /etc/nginx/sites-available/* config file, updating path and port as needed:

    location / {
        proxy_pass         http://127.0.0.1:8502/;
        proxy_http_version 1.1;
        proxy_set_header   Upgrade $http_upgrade;
        proxy_set_header   Connection keep-alive;
        proxy_set_header   Host $host;
        proxy_cache_bypass $http_upgrade;
        proxy_set_header   X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
        proxy_set_header   X-Forwarded-Proto $scheme;
    }
  
    location /ws {
        proxy_pass         http://127.0.0.1:8502/ws;
        proxy_http_version 1.1;
        proxy_set_header   Upgrade $http_upgrade;
        proxy_set_header   Connection "upgrade";
        proxy_set_header   Host $host;
        proxy_cache_bypass $http_upgrade;
        proxy_set_header   X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
        proxy_set_header   X-Forwarded-Proto $scheme;
    }

That's it! Restart NGINX, and open your app in a browser.