How to Host a Discord Bot 24/7 on a Free VPS

A Discord bot only works while something is running it. Your laptop sleeps, loses Wi-Fi and gets closed at the end of class, so the bot goes offline with it. A small Linux server fixes that, and the free VPS is exactly the right size for one bot.

This guide takes you from a fresh server to a bot that answers a /ping slash command and survives crashes and reboots.

What you need

• A free VPS running Ubuntu 24.04, with the SSH address and port from your welcome email
• A Discord account and a server where you can add bots
• About 20 minutes

Create the bot in Discord

1. Open the Discord Developer Portal and choose New Application. Give it a name.
2. Under Bot, press Reset Token and copy the token. Treat it like a password: anyone with it controls your bot.
3. Copy the Application ID from General Information. You’ll need it to register the slash command.
4. Under OAuth2 → URL Generator, tick bot and applications.commands, open the generated URL, and add the bot to your server.

Log in and create a user for the bot

Connect with the address and port from your welcome email:

ssh -p YOUR_SSH_PORT root@YOUR_SERVER_ADDRESS

Running services as root is a bad habit, so create a user just for the bot:

adduser --disabled-password --gecos "" bot

Install Node.js LTS

Ubuntu’s own Node.js package is older than discord.js needs, so install the current LTS from NodeSource:

apt update
curl -fsSL https://deb.nodesource.com/setup_lts.x | bash -
apt install -y nodejs
node --version

Write the bot

Switch to the bot user and create a project:

su - bot
mkdir mybot && cd mybot
npm init -y
npm pkg set type=module
npm install discord.js

Create index.js:

import { Client, Events, GatewayIntentBits } from 'discord.js';

const client = new Client({ intents: [GatewayIntentBits.Guilds] });

client.once(Events.ClientReady, (c) => {
  console.log(`Ready as ${c.user.tag}`);
});

client.on(Events.InteractionCreate, async (interaction) => {
  if (!interaction.isChatInputCommand()) return;
  if (interaction.commandName === 'ping') {
    await interaction.reply('Pong from a free VPS');
  }
});

client.login(process.env.DISCORD_TOKEN);

Slash commands are registered once, separately from the bot. Create deploy-commands.js:

import { REST, Routes, SlashCommandBuilder } from 'discord.js';

const commands = [
  new SlashCommandBuilder().setName('ping').setDescription('Check the bot is alive'),
].map((command) => command.toJSON());

const rest = new REST().setToken(process.env.DISCORD_TOKEN);
await rest.put(Routes.applicationCommands(process.env.CLIENT_ID), { body: commands });
console.log('Registered /ping');

Keep the token out of your code

Put secrets in a .env file that only the bot user can read:

cat > .env <<'EOF'
DISCORD_TOKEN=paste-your-token-here
CLIENT_ID=paste-your-application-id-here
EOF
chmod 600 .env

Register the command, then start the bot once by hand to check it works:

set -a; . ./.env; set +a
node deploy-commands.js
node index.js

You should see Ready as YourBot#1234. Type /ping in your Discord server. Global commands can take a little while to appear the first time. Press Ctrl+C to stop the bot, then type exit to go back to root.

Run it 24/7 with systemd

systemd starts the bot at boot and restarts it when it crashes. As root, create /etc/systemd/system/mybot.service:

[Unit]
Description=Discord bot
After=network-online.target
Wants=network-online.target

[Service]
User=bot
WorkingDirectory=/home/bot/mybot
EnvironmentFile=/home/bot/mybot/.env
ExecStart=/usr/bin/node index.js
Restart=on-failure
RestartSec=5

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Enable and start it:

systemctl daemon-reload
systemctl enable --now mybot
systemctl status mybot

Follow its logs whenever you need to:

journalctl -u mybot -f

Keep the free VPS awake

The free VPS needs one click on Keep alive in the client area every 30 days. We email a reminder, and the bot keeps running while you do. If a project grows past 1 GB of memory or needs a dedicated IPv4 address, VPS Start is the next step up.

If something goes wrong

• Error: An invalid token was provided: the token in .env is wrong or was reset. Copy a fresh one from the Developer Portal.
• /ping doesn’t appear: rerun node deploy-commands.js and check CLIENT_ID is the Application ID, not the bot’s user ID.
• The service keeps restarting: journalctl -u mybot -n 50 shows the last error.

How we made this: drafted with AI assistance, then edited. Technical testing is pending.