Deployment Overview

Paid Hosting

If you would rather skip the hosting and jump straight to integrating Flagsmith with your own application, you can use https://flagsmith.com/ right now. We have paid plans with pricing to suit both startups and enterprise customers alike.

One Click Installers

Fly.io

We're big fans of Fly.io! You can deploy to fly.io really easily:

git clone git@github.com:Flagsmith/flagsmith.git
cd flagsmith
flyctl postgres create --name flagsmith-flyio-db
flyctl apps create flagsmith-flyio
flyctl postgres attach --postgres-app flagsmith-flyio-db
flyctl deploy

Fly.io has a global application namespace, and so you may need to change the name of the application defined in fly.toml as well as the commands above.

Caprover

You can also deploy to a Caprover Server with One Click Apps.

Self Hosting Overview

You will need to run through the following steps to get set up:

Create a Postgres database to store the Flagsmith data.
Deploy the API and set up DNS for it. If you are using health-checks, make sure to use /health as the health-check endpoint.
Visit http://<your-server-domain:8000>/api/v1/users/config/init/ to create an initial Superuser and provide DNS info to the platform.
Deploy the Front End Dashboard and set up DNS for it. Point the Dashboard to the API using the relevant Environment Variables. If you are using health-checks, make sure to use /health as the health-check endpoint.
Create a new Organisation, Project, Environment and Flags via the Dashboard.
When using our SDKs, you will need to override the API URL that they point to, otherwise they will default to connect to our paid-for API at https://api.flagsmith.com/api/v1. See the SDK documentation for the library you are using.

Deployment Options

We recommend running Flagsmith with Docker. We have options to run within Docker, Kubernetes or RedHat OpenShift.

Architecture

The Flagsmith architecture is based around a simple REST API that is accessed by both SDK clients and the Flagsmith Dashboard Front End Web App.

Application Architecture

Dependencies

Running the API has the following hard dependencies:

Postgres database(We have tested it for 11.12 but it can work for other versions too) - the main data store

The API can also optionally make use of the following 3rd party services:

Google Analytics - for API analytics
InfluxDB - for API analytics
SendGrid - for transactional email
AWS S3 - to store Django Static Assets
GitHub - oAuth provider
Google - oAuth provider

InfluxDB

Flagsmith has a soft dependency on InfluxDB to store time-series data. You don't need to configure Influx to run the platform, but SDK traffic and flag analytics will not work without it being set up and configured correctly. Once your docker-compose is running:

Create a user account in influxdb. You can visit http://localhost:8086/ and do this. Create an Initial Bucket with the name flagsmith_api
Go into Data > Buckets and create a second bucket, flagsmith_api_downsampled_15m.
Go into Data > Tokens and grab your access token.
Edit the docker-compose.yml file and add the following environment variables in the api service to connect the api to InfluxDB:
- INFLUXDB_TOKEN: The token from the step above
- INFLUXDB_URL: http://influxdb
- INFLUXDB_ORG: The organisation ID - you can find it here
- INFLUXDB_BUCKET: flagsmith_api
Restart docker-compose
Log into InfluxDB, create a new bucket called flagsmith_api_downsampled_15m
Create a new task with the following query. This will downsample your per millisecond data down to 15 minute blocks for faster queries. Set it to run every 15 minutes.

option task = {name: "Downsample", every: 15m}

data = from(bucket: "flagsmith_api")
    |> range(start: -duration(v: int(v: task.every) * 2))
    |> filter(fn: (r) =>
        (r._measurement == "api_call"))

data
    |> aggregateWindow(fn: sum, every: 15m)
    |> filter(fn: (r) =>
        (exists r._value))
    |> to(bucket: "flagsmith_api_downsampled_15m")

Once this task has run you will see data coming into the Organisation API Usage area.

You will need to generate some flag evaluations within our SDKs to start to see Flag Analytics data coming into the influx database.

API Telemetry

Flagsmith collects information about self hosted installations. This helps us understand how the platform is being used. This data is never shared outside of the organisation, and is anonymous by design. You can opt out of sending this telemetry on startup by setting the ENABLE_TELEMETRY environment variable to False.

We collect the following data on startup and then once every 8 hours per API server instance:

Total number of Organisations
Total number of Projects
Total number of Environments
Total number of Features
Total number of Segments
Total number of Users
DEBUG django variable
ENV django variable
API server external IP address

Running Flagsmith on Flagsmith

Flagsmith uses Flagsmith to control features on the front end dashboard. If you are self hosting the platform, you will sometimes see features greyed out, or you may want to disable specific features, e.g. logging in via Google and Github. If you are using your own Flagsmith environment then you will need to have a replica of our flags in order to control access to those features.

To do this,firstly create a new project within your self-hosted Flagsmith application. This is the project that we will use to control the features of the self-hosted Flagsmith instance. We will then point the self hosted front end dashboard at this Flagsmith project in order to control what features show for your self hosted Flagsmith instance.

Once you have created the project, you need to set the following Front End environment variables in order to configure this:

FLAGSMITH_ON_FLAGSMITH_API_KEY
- The Flagsmith Client-side Environment Key we use to manage features - Flagsmith runs on Flagsmith. This will be the API key for the project you created as instructed above.
FLAGSMITH_ON_FLAGSMITH_API_URL
- The API URL which the Flagsmith front end dashboard should communicate with. This will most likely be the domain name of the Flagsmith API you are self hosting: Flagsmith runs on Flagsmith. E.g. For our SaaS hosted platform, the variable is https://api.flagsmith.com/api/v1/. For example, if you were running everything locally using the standard docker-compose setup, you would use http://localhost:8000/api/v1/

Once you have set this up, you should see the Flagsmith front end requesting its own flags from the API (you can look in your browser developer console to see this). You can now start creating flags and overriding the default behaviours of the platform. For example, if you wanted to disable Google OAuth authentication, you would create a flag called oauth_google and disable it.

Current Flagsmith Feature Flags

The list of the flags and remote config we're currently using in production is below:

Flag Name	Description	Text Value
`try_it`	Whether to show the try it buttons	None
`butter_bar`	markdown to show at the top of the dashboard page	None
`disable_create_org`	Turning this on will prevent users from creating any additional organisations	None
`scaleup_audit`	Disables audit log for anyone under scale-up plan	None
`integration_data`	Configures integrations	See Below
`integrations`	Whether to show the try it buttons	`["amplitude","datadog","dynatrace","new-relic","segment","rudderstack","webhook","slack", "heap","mixpanel"]`
`plan_based_access`	Controls RBAC and 2FA based on organisation plan	None
`flag_analytics`	Flag usage chart - requires InfluxDB	None
`usage_chart`	Organisation Analytics usage chart - requires InfluxDB	None
`dark_mode`	Enables Dark Mode in UI See Below	None
`scaleup_audit`	Disables audit log for anyone under scale-up plan	None
`serverside_sdk_keys`	Enable Server-side Environment Keys	None
`compare_environments`	Compare feature flag changes across environments	None
`segment_operators`	Determines what rules are shown when creating a segment	See Below
`oauth_github`	Disables audit log for anyone under scale-up plan	See Below
`oauth_google`	Disables audit log for anyone under scale-up plan	See Below

`integration_data`

{
 "datadog": {
  "perEnvironment": false,
  "image": "https://app.flagsmith.com/static/images/integrations/datadog.svg",
  "docs": "https://docs.flagsmith.com/integrations/datadog/",
  "fields": [
   {
    "key": "base_url",
    "label": "Base URL"
   },
   {
    "key": "api_key",
    "label": "API Key"
   }
  ],
  "tags": ["logging"],
  "title": "Datadog",
  "description": "Sends events to Datadog for when flags are created, updated and removed. Logs are tagged with the environment they came from e.g. production."
 },
 "dynatrace": {
  "perEnvironment": true,
  "image": "/static/images/integrations/dynatrace.svg",
  "docs": "https://docs.flagsmith.com/integrations/dynatrace/",
  "fields": [
   {
    "key": "base_url",
    "label": "Base URL"
   },
   {
    "key": "api_key",
    "label": "API Key"
   },
   {
    "key": "entity_selector",
    "label": "Entity Selector"
   }
  ],
  "tags": ["logging"],
  "title": "Dynatrace",
  "description": "Sends events to Dynatrace for when flags are created, updated and removed. Logs are tagged with the environment they came from e.g. production."
 },
 "slack": {
  "perEnvironment": true,
  "isOauth": true,
  "image": "https://app.flagsmith.com/static/images/integrations/slack.svg",
  "docs": "https://docs.flagsmith.com/integrations/slack/",
  "tags": ["messaging"],
  "title": "Slack",
  "description": "Sends messages to Slack when flags are created, updated and removed. Logs are tagged with the environment they came from e.g. production."
 },
 "amplitude": {
  "perEnvironment": true,
  "image": "https://app.flagsmith.com/static/images/integrations/amplitude.svg",
  "docs": "https://docs.flagsmith.com/integrations/amplitude/",
  "fields": [
   {
    "key": "api_key",
    "label": "API Key"
   }
  ],
  "tags": ["analytics"],
  "title": "Amplitude",
  "description": "Sends data on what flags served to each identity."
 },
 "new-relic": {
  "perEnvironment": false,
  "image": "https://app.flagsmith.com/static/images/integrations/new_relic.svg",
  "docs": "https://docs.flagsmith.com/integrations/newrelic",
  "fields": [
   {
    "key": "base_url",
    "label": "New Relic Base URL"
   },
   {
    "key": "api_key",
    "label": "New Relic API Key"
   },
   {
    "key": "app_id",
    "label": "New Relic Application ID"
   }
  ],
  "tags": ["analytics"],
  "title": "New Relic",
  "description": "Sends events to New Relic for when flags are created, updated and removed."
 },
 "segment": {
  "perEnvironment": true,
  "image": "https://app.flagsmith.com/static/images/integrations/segment.svg",
  "docs": "https://docs.flagsmith.com/integrations/segment",
  "fields": [
   {
    "key": "api_key",
    "label": "API Key"
   }
  ],
  "tags": ["analytics"],
  "title": "Segment",
  "description": "Sends data on what flags served to each identity."
 },
 "rudderstack": {
  "perEnvironment": true,
  "image": "https://app.flagsmith.com/static/images/integrations/rudderstack.svg",
  "docs": "https://docs.flagsmith.com/integrations/rudderstack",
  "fields": [
   {
    "key": "base_url",
    "label": "Rudderstack Data Plane URL"
   },
   {
    "key": "api_key",
    "label": "API Key"
   }
  ],
  "tags": ["analytics"],
  "title": "Rudderstack",
  "description": "Sends data on what flags served to each identity."
 },
 "webhook": {
  "perEnvironment": true,
  "image": "https://app.flagsmith.com/static/images/integrations/webhooks.svg",
  "docs": "https://docs.flagsmith.com/integrations/webhook",
  "fields": [
   {
    "key": "url",
    "label": "Your Webhook URL Endpoint"
   },
   {
    "key": "secret",
    "label": "Your Webhook Secret"
   }
  ],
  "tags": ["analytics"],
  "title": "Webhook",
  "description": "Sends data on what flags served to each identity to a Webhook Endpoint you provide."
 },
 "heap": {
  "perEnvironment": true,
  "image": "https://app.flagsmith.com/static/images/integrations/heap.svg",
  "docs": "https://docs.flagsmith.com/integrations/heap",
  "fields": [
   {
    "key": "api_key",
    "label": "API Key"
   }
  ],
  "tags": ["analytics"],
  "title": "Heap Analytics",
  "description": "Sends data on what flags served to each identity."
 },
 "mixpanel": {
  "perEnvironment": true,
  "image": "https://app.flagsmith.com/static/images/integrations/mp.svg",
  "docs": "https://docs.flagsmith.com/integrations/mixpanel",
  "fields": [
   {
    "key": "api_key",
    "label": "Project Token"
   }
  ],
  "tags": ["analytics"],
  "title": "Mixpanel",
  "description": "Sends data on what flags served to each identity."
 }
}

`segment_operators`

[
 {
  "value": "EQUAL",
  "label": "Exactly Matches (=)"
 },
 {
  "value": "NOT_EQUAL",
  "label": "Does not match (!=)"
 },
 {
  "value": "PERCENTAGE_SPLIT",
  "label": "% Split"
 },
 {
  "value": "GREATER_THAN",
  "label": ">"
 },
 {
  "value": "GREATER_THAN_INCLUSIVE",
  "label": ">="
 },
 {
  "value": "LESS_THAN",
  "label": "<"
 },
 {
  "value": "LESS_THAN_INCLUSIVE",
  "label": "<="
 },
 {
  "value": "GREATER_THAN:semver",
  "label": "SemVer >",
  "append": ":semver"
 },
 {
  "value": "GREATER_THAN_INCLUSIVE:semver",
  "label": "SemVer >=",
  "append": ":semver"
 },
 {
  "value": "LESS_THAN:semver",
  "label": "SemVer <",
  "append": ":semver"
 },
 {
  "value": "LESS_THAN_INCLUSIVE:semver",
  "label": "SemVer <=",
  "append": ":semver"
 },

 {
  "value": "CONTAINS",
  "label": "Contains"
 },
 {
  "value": "NOT_CONTAINS",
  "label": "Does not contain"
 },
 {
  "value": "REGEX",
  "label": "Matches regex"
 }
]

`oauth_github`

{
 "url": "<Your github redirect URL>"
}

`oauth_google`

{
 "clientId": "<Your Google oAuth Client ID>",
 "apiKey": "<Your Google redirect URL>"
}

Dark Mode

We also have a Segment that manages the ui Dark Mode:

Segment Name: dark_mode Segment Rules: Trait dark_mode EXACTLY MATCHES True

Then use this rule to override the dark_mode Feature Flag.

Integrations

Some Integrations require additional configuration

Slack Integration

Create a private Slack app. You will then need to provide the following environment variables on the API side:

SLACK_CLIENT_ID
SLACK_CLIENT_SECRET

You can retrieve these values from Slack. You will also need to add the following scopes:

channels:read
chat:write
chat:write.public

Manual Installation

If you want a more configurable environment, you can manually install both the Front End and the API.

Server Side API

The source code and installation instructions can be found at the GitHub project. The API is written in Python and is based on Django and the Django Rest Framework. The Server side API relies on a Postgres SQL installation to store its data, and a Redis installation as a cache.

Front End Website

The source code and installation instructions can be found at the GitHub project. The Front End Website is written in React/Javascript and requires NodeJS.

Paid Hosting​

One Click Installers​

Caprover​

Self Hosting Overview​

Deployment Options​

Architecture​

Dependencies​

InfluxDB​

API Telemetry​

Running Flagsmith on Flagsmith​

Current Flagsmith Feature Flags​

integration_data​

segment_operators​

oauth_github​

oauth_google​

Dark Mode​

Integrations​

Slack Integration​

Manual Installation​

Server Side API​

Front End Website​