PM2 is a band-aid. Bun doesn't need it

Aug 8, 2026

If you’re coming from the Node.js ecosystem, PM2 is probably muscle memory. You deploy, you run pm2 start app.js, you move on. It works. So why doesn’t Dulak recommend it?

PM2 solves a Node problem

PM2 was built to manage Node.js processes — restart on crash, handle logs, manage cluster mode. It’s a good tool for Node.

Dulak runs on Bun. Bun is not Node. Using PM2 to manage a Bun process is using a Node tool to manage a non-Node process. It works — PM2 can manage any process — but you’re carrying a dependency that was designed for a different runtime.

systemd already does this

Every Linux server has systemd built in. No install, no dependency, no extra runtime. Dulak’s VPS deployment guide ships a systemd unit file that:

Restarts the process on crash (Restart=always)
Handles graceful shutdown via SIGTERM (Dulak drains in-flight requests and closes the DB)
Manages logs via journald
Starts on boot (WantedBy=multi-user.target)

PM2 duplicates every one of these features. The difference is systemd is already there and PM2 is a dependency you install.

Docker already does this

If you’re deploying with Docker — and Dulak ships a multi-stage Dockerfile — the container runtime handles restarts:

services:
  app:
    restart: unless-stopped

That’s it. No PM2 inside the container, no process manager layer. Docker restarts the container if it exits. Dulak handles SIGTERM for graceful shutdown.

The philosophy angle

Dulak’s philosophy is “zero-dependency where cheap.” systemd is zero-dependency — it’s already on every Linux server. Docker is zero-dependency for containerized deploys — the runtime handles it.

PM2 is a dependency you install to solve a problem that’s already solved. It adds:

A Node.js runtime (to run PM2 itself, even though your app runs on Bun)
A configuration layer (ecosystem.config.js)
A CLI tool to learn and debug
Another thing that can break

When PM2 makes sense

To be fair, PM2 has legitimate use cases:

You’re on a shared host without systemd access — some budget VPS providers restrict systemd. PM2 works without it.
You’re migrating a Node.js app and already have PM2 infrastructure — if your team knows PM2 and your monitoring is wired to it, switching has a cost.
You need cluster mode for a Node app — PM2’s cluster mode is genuinely useful for Node.js multi-core scaling.

None of these apply to Dulak. Dulak is Bun, not Node. Dulak ships with systemd and Docker configs. Dulak handles SIGTERM gracefully.

The short version

systemd for bare metal. Docker for containers. PM2 for Node.

Dulak is not Node.