What is Apex?
Apex is a self-hosted automated trading system that runs on a cloud server you own. It connects to your brokerage account and executes a systematic strategy every trading day, with no manual intervention required.
The system is a set of independent modules — screener, position monitor, sector rotation engine and the rest — running as background services and communicating through a shared PostgreSQL database. A web dashboard lets you monitor positions, review performance and change configuration.
Apex is not financial advice. All trading carries risk. See the risk disclaimer.
System requirements
A $6/month basic droplet with 1 vCPU and 1 GB of RAM is enough for the Starter tier. Move to the $12/month droplet for Pro or Elite, where more modules run concurrently.
| Component | Minimum | Recommended |
|---|---|---|
| VPS / droplet | 1 vCPU · 1 GB RAM | 2 vCPU · 2 GB RAM |
| Operating system | Ubuntu 22.04 LTS | Ubuntu 24.04 LTS |
| Disk | 20 GB SSD | 40 GB SSD |
| Node.js | v18+ | v20 LTS |
| PostgreSQL | v14+ | v16 |
| Brokerage | Alpaca paper account | Alpaca live account |
| Licence | Active Apex licence | — |
Installation guide
Installing Apex is one command. The installer handles Node.js, PostgreSQL, nginx, the SSL certificate, the database and the dashboard container for you.
Provision a server
An Ubuntu 22.04 or newer droplet on DigitalOcean, or any VPS. 1 GB RAM is enough for Starter; 2 GB for Pro and Elite. Note the IP address.
Run the installer
bashssh root@YOUR_SERVER_IP bash <(curl -fsSL https://setup.apexaitrade.com/install.sh) --license YOUR_LICENCE_KEY
It asks for your domain (or the bare IP) and a database password, then installs everything and starts the service.
Complete setup in the browser
Open the address the installer prints. The wizard walks through connecting your Alpaca or Tradier account, setting a dashboard password, choosing modules, and configuring risk limits.
Your API keys, trade history and database stay on your server. They are never sent to us.