How to Run OpenClaw 24/7 on a VPS — Always On, Always Working

A VPS costing a few euros per month keeps your OpenClaw agent running continuously — so morning briefings arrive while your laptop is closed and customer messages are answered at 3am.

Running OpenClaw on your laptop works well for personal use during the day. But the moment you want scheduled automations that run while you sleep, customer-facing agents that cannot go offline when you close your laptop, or any workflow that needs genuine 24/7 availability, you need a machine that never turns off.

A VPS (Virtual Private Server) solves this elegantly. A basic server — 2 vCPUs, 4GB RAM — costs between €3.50 and $5 per month. It runs continuously, handles multiple OpenClaw workflows comfortably if you are using cloud models, and requires minimal maintenance once configured.

Choosing Your Server

Hetzner CX21 (2 vCPU, 4GB RAM, €4.51/month) is the recommended option for most OpenClaw deployments using cloud models. Reliable, fast and located in EU data centres for GDPR compliance.

DigitalOcean offers a 1-Click OpenClaw Deploy that handles the entire setup automatically — the easiest option if you want to avoid any manual server configuration.

If you plan to run local Ollama models on the server, you need significantly more RAM: minimum 16GB for Llama 3.1 8B, which means a larger and more expensive instance.

Deploying OpenClaw on Your Server

# Connect to your VPS
ssh root@your-server-ip

# Run the installer
curl -fsSL https://openclaw.ai/install.sh | bash

# Configure via the onboarding wizard (same as local)
openclaw onboard

# Install your channels and skills
openclaw channels add telegram
openclaw skills install web-search email-manager calendar-assistant

# Register as a system daemon (auto-starts on boot)
openclaw gateway --install-daemon
sudo systemctl enable openclaw-gateway

Verifying 24/7 Operation

After daemon registration, restart your server and confirm OpenClaw starts automatically: sudo systemctl status openclaw-gateway. Send your agent a message from your phone — it should respond within a few seconds even though you are not logged into the server.

Set up a scheduled morning briefing as the final test. If it arrives at the configured time the next day, your 24/7 setup is working correctly.