Self-Hosting Linkwarden: Secure Bookmarking on Your Own Server - boxvirt.com - Infrastructure, firewalls & virtualization. No fluff

Tired of losing important links or depending on third-party services like Pocket or Raindrop? Linkwarden is a privacy-friendly, self-hosted alternative that lets you store, organize, and search bookmarks — all on your own terms.

This guide walks you through deploying Linkwarden with Docker and Traefik, configuring it for SSL, and accessing it from anywhere securely.

🧰 Why Use Linkwarden?

📁 Save links with titles, tags, notes, and screenshots
🔐 Self-hosted = complete data privacy
🌐 Access anywhere with SSL
🧭 Fast full-text search
👥 Multi-user support
📷 Automatic page archiving (via browser extension)

🐳 Deployment with Docker Compose

Create a directory:

mkdir -p ~/linkwarden && cd ~/linkwarden

Then create a docker-compose.yml file:

version: '3.9'
services:
  linkwarden:
    image: ghcr.io/linkwarden/linkwarden:latest
    container_name: linkwarden
    restart: unless-stopped
    environment:
      - DATABASE_URL=postgres://user:pass@db:5432/linkwarden
    depends_on:
      - db
    ports:
      - 3000:3000
    volumes:
      - ./data:/data

  db:
    image: postgres:15
    environment:
      - POSTGRES_DB=linkwarden
      - POSTGRES_USER=user
      - POSTGRES_PASSWORD=pass
    volumes:
      - ./pgdata:/var/lib/postgresql/data

🛠️ Setup & Access

Start containers:

docker compose up -d

Access via http://your-server-ip:3000
Register an account
(Optional) Install the Linkwarden Chrome/Firefox extension

🔒 Securing with HTTPS via Traefik

If you’re already using Traefik (e.g., for other Docker apps), add a label block to your service:

labels:
  - "traefik.enable=true"
  - "traefik.http.routers.linkwarden.rule=Host(`links.yourdomain.com`)"
  - "traefik.http.routers.linkwarden.entrypoints=websecure"
  - "traefik.http.routers.linkwarden.tls.certresolver=myresolver"

📲 Use Cases

Personal bookmarking vault
Team research archive
Curated collection of articles, videos, and PDFs
Save content offline for future reference

⚙️ Tips & Extras

Use Plausible or Umami to self-host stats
Integrate with Nginx Proxy Manager
Enable auto backups with borg or restic
Add Redis for performance boost

💡 Conclusion

Linkwarden is a powerful, minimalist bookmark manager that respects your privacy and puts you in control. It’s fast, Docker-friendly, and actively maintained by the open-source community. If you’re serious about decluttering your digital brain — host your own Linkwarden server and keep your internet organized for good.