Run a free Vinted bot 24/7: Pi, NAS, Docker, VPS

vinted-bot runs on a computer you choose and sends alerts from there. Two things decide which computer: it has to stay on, and the internet connection it uses matters more than how fast it is. A Raspberry Pi on your home internet does better than a fast server on an address Vinted refuses.

You have	Use	Keeps working when you walk away?
A Windows PC or a Mac	the one-line installer	Only while it's on and awake
A Raspberry Pi, mini PC or old laptop	the one-line installer or Docker	Yes
A NAS (Unraid, Synology, Umbrel, CasaOS)	its app store or a compose project	Yes
Nothing that stays on	a small server you rent, a few euros a month	Yes

[!IMPORTANT] Vinted moved its search to a new address in September 2026, and versions before 2.0.0 find nothing since. If you installed earlier, update first.

On your own computer

The installer needs no admin rights and no Docker. It installs uv (a small tool that downloads Python and vinted-bot into your user folder), asks whether to start vinted-bot when you log in, starts it, and opens the dashboard at http://localhost:8000.

Windows 10 or 11. Open PowerShell (Start menu, type PowerShell, press Enter), paste this and press Enter:

powershell -ExecutionPolicy ByPass -c "irm https://raw.githubusercontent.com/jasp-nerd/vinted-bot/main/install.ps1 | iex"

macOS. Open Terminal (Cmd+Space, type Terminal, press Enter), paste this and press Enter:

curl -LsSf https://raw.githubusercontent.com/jasp-nerd/vinted-bot/main/install.sh | sh

Linux. The same command as macOS.

Prefer to read a script before running it? Download install.sh or install.ps1, read it, then run it (sh install.sh, or powershell -ExecutionPolicy ByPass -File install.ps1). Both explain each step at the top.

Where things end up:

	Your searches and log	Starts at login through
Windows	`%LOCALAPPDATA%\vinted-bot`	a shortcut in your Startup folder
macOS	`~/Library/Application Support/vinted-bot`	a LaunchAgent (macOS shows a "Background Items Added" notice once)
Linux	`~/.local/share/vinted-bot`	a systemd user service

Keep it awake. Alerts stop while the computer sleeps. On a Mac the installer offers to keep it awake while it's plugged in, for as long as vinted-bot runs; a closed MacBook lid still sends it to sleep. On Windows, set Settings, System, Power, "Make my device sleep" to Never while plugged in.

Stop it for now:

Windows: in PowerShell, Get-Process vinted-bot | Stop-Process
macOS: launchctl bootout gui/$(id -u)/io.github.jasp-nerd.vinted-bot
Linux: systemctl --user stop vinted-bot

If you said no to starting at login, stopping is pkill -f 'vinted-bot run' on macOS and Linux, and running the install command again starts it again.

Remove it. Your searches stay in the folder above until you delete it.

powershell -ExecutionPolicy ByPass -c '$env:VINTED_BOT_UNINSTALL=1; irm https://raw.githubusercontent.com/jasp-nerd/vinted-bot/main/install.ps1 | iex'

curl -LsSf https://raw.githubusercontent.com/jasp-nerd/vinted-bot/main/install.sh | sh -s -- --uninstall

On a Raspberry Pi or any Linux box

Any always-on machine works: a Raspberry Pi 4 or 5, an old laptop, a mini PC. vinted-bot idles at a few percent of one core and a few dozen megabytes of memory.

Why home first:

Home connections are challenged far less often than datacenter ones by anti-bot systems.
Nothing to pay, and no free tier that can be withdrawn.
The database, your webhook links and your Telegram token stay on hardware you own.

The one-line installer above works on a Pi (64-bit Raspberry Pi OS). Say yes to starting at login, and it also offers the one command that makes it start at boot with nobody logged in:

sudo loginctl enable-linger $USER

The dashboard only listens on the Pi itself. From your own computer, open a tunnel and then visit http://localhost:8000 there:

ssh -L 8000:localhost:8000 pi@raspberrypi.local

Or use Docker, below. Images are built for both x86 and ARM, so the same commands work on a Pi.

With Docker

mkdir vinted-bot && cd vinted-bot
curl -O https://raw.githubusercontent.com/jasp-nerd/vinted-bot/main/docker-compose.yml
docker compose up -d

Then open http://localhost:8000 on that machine. No configuration file is needed: searches and alert destinations are set up in the dashboard. restart: unless-stopped brings it back after a reboot or a power cut.

Worth a look in docker-compose.yml:

TZ, your time zone, for times in the dashboard and quiet hours.
Image tags. latest is the newest release. edge follows the main branch, with fixes before they are released. 2, 2.1 or 2.1.0 pin a version.
A folder instead of a volume. Swap vinted-bot-data:/data for ./data:/data to keep the database next to the compose file, then set PUID and PGID to the folder's owner (id prints yours). The container hands /data to that user before starting and runs as it, never as root.
Automatic updates, if you want them: docker compose --profile autoupdate up -d adds a maintained fork of Watchtower that updates vinted-bot once a night. It needs the Docker socket, so it is off unless you ask for it.

Optional settings, such as a Telegram bot token, go in a .env file next to the compose file:

curl -o .env https://raw.githubusercontent.com/jasp-nerd/vinted-bot/main/.env.example

Check it started:

docker compose logs -f vinted-bot
docker compose exec vinted-bot vinted-bot status

On a NAS

Unraid: search "vinted-bot" in Community Applications. Until it is listed, add the template from deploy/unraid by hand.
Umbrel: add the community app store described in deploy/.
CasaOS and ZimaOS: Custom Install, then import deploy/casaos/docker-compose.yml.
Synology (DSM 7.2+): Container Manager, Project, Create, and paste the compose file with ./data:/data and your DSM user's PUID/PGID (usually 1026 and 100).
Portainer: Stacks, Add stack, Repository, pointing at this repository.

deploy/README.md has the details for each. On a NAS the dashboard is usually reachable from your whole network, so set VINTED_BOT_WEB_AUTH_TOKEN as a password.

On a VPS or a cloud host

Reasonable if you have no machine at home. Around €5 a month:

Provider	Notes
Hetzner CX22	Cheapest sensible option. Their address ranges have a mixed reputation with anti-bot systems, so test before committing.
DigitalOcean	Costs a little more, easiest control panel if this is your first server.
Contabo	Cheap, generous specs, variable performance.

Setup is the same as on a Pi: the one-line installer or Docker. Before you commit, check that Vinted answers that server (see Vinted reachable from this machine). If it doesn't, pick a different provider rather than fight it.

On a VPS, do not expose port 8000 to the internet directly. Keep the loopback binding and reach the dashboard through an SSH tunnel:

ssh -L 8000:localhost:8000 you@your-server

Then open http://localhost:8000 on your own machine. Anything else needs VINTED_BOT_WEB_AUTH_TOKEN set and a reverse proxy with TLS in front, because the dashboard shows your webhook links.

Platforms that run the image for you (Render, Railway, Coolify) have templates in deploy/. All are paid for an always-on app with storage, and they send traffic from shared datacenter addresses, which Vinted challenges more often. Run the reachability check from there before relying on one.

Free tiers worth avoiding

Oracle Cloud Always Free. Their reclamation policy deletes instances that stay idle, and a polling app idles at a few percent CPU by design. They also cut the free ARM allowance in 2026 with little notice. Your instance will eventually disappear.

Render's free tier. Free web services sleep after fifteen minutes without visits and can't keep a disk, so searches would be lost and checks would stop.

Railway and Fly.io. Neither has a free tier that stays on with storage. Both work fine as paid hosts, at roughly VPS prices.

Backups

Everything lives in one SQLite file, app.db:

Installer: in the folder listed under On your own computer.
Docker: in the vinted-bot-data volume. Copy it out with docker compose cp vinted-bot:/data/app.db ./app-backup.db

Losing it costs you your searches and destinations, not much else: listings are pruned after thirty days anyway.

Updating

The dashboard tells you when a new version is out (it asks GitHub once a day; Settings, Updates turns that off). What it offers depends on how vinted-bot was installed:

Installed with	What updating looks like
The installer, starting by itself at login	Update now in the banner or under Settings, Updates. It installs the new version, restarts into it and the page reloads, all in about a minute.
The installer, without starting at login	Update now installs it; then restart vinted-bot (`vinted-bot run`, or run the install command again). On Windows the installer's launcher always restarts it.
`uv tool install` or `pipx install` yourself	The same button; restart it yourself afterwards, unless your own service sets `VINTED_BOT_SUPERVISED` (see configuration).
Docker	`docker compose pull && docker compose up -d`, or the nightly updater below. A container never updates itself: whatever it changed inside itself would be lost the next time it is recreated.
`uvx`	`uvx vinted-bot@latest run`
A copy of the source	`git pull && uv sync`, then restart.
A NAS app store	The store's update button.

Running the install command again always works too: it stops vinted-bot, updates it and starts it again.

Updating by itself. Where the button restarts the app, Settings, Updates also offers "Install updates by itself". It is off unless you turn it on. When it is on, a new release is installed between 4 and 5 at night (by the time zone in Settings), never while an alert is on its way out, and destinations that get status alerts are told afterwards. If an update fails, it tries again the next night. With Docker, the optional nightly updater in the compose file does the same job (docker compose --profile autoupdate up -d).

What it runs. The button runs uv tool upgrade vinted-bot (or pipx upgrade vinted-bot), the same command you would type, and only when GitHub's latest release is newer than what is running. The new version comes from PyPI, like the first install did. If the command fails, or installs nothing newer, the app keeps running the version it was on and the page says why, with uv's own output underneath. On Windows a running program cannot replace its own files, so the app closes and the installer's launcher runs the upgrade, then starts it again; the log file has uv's output.

Database changes are applied automatically at startup. If an update misbehaves, see Everything is broken after an update.

Running from source

For working on the code, or if you'd rather manage Python yourself:

git clone https://github.com/jasp-nerd/vinted-bot && cd vinted-bot
uv sync
uv run vinted-bot run --open

No .env needed here either; copy .env.example to .env later for Telegram or other tuning. For a systemd service, point ExecStart at /path/to/.venv/bin/vinted-bot run, set WorkingDirectory, and add Restart=always. The app handles SIGTERM itself, so the default KillSignal is correct and there is no need for a long TimeoutStopSec.