Open source deployment platforms and self-hosted PaaS

Three kinds of deployment tool

All the tools listed here take your code or a container image and run it on servers you control, with a domain and an HTTPS certificate. They differ mainly in what sits underneath and how much they do for you.

• Dashboard platforms on Docker. Coolify, Dokploy, CapRover and ZaneOps install on a Linux server and give you a web interface for apps, databases, one-click services and logs. They are the closest to the Heroku, Vercel or Netlify experience. Dokploy, CapRover and ZaneOps build on Docker Swarm; Coolify uses standalone Docker on each connected server.
• Command-line tools. Dokku recreates Heroku’s git push workflow on one server, and Piku does the same without Docker for very small machines. Kamal deploys Docker containers over SSH with no control plane left behind, and Uncloud spreads Docker Compose apps across several hosts over a WireGuard network. These leave fewer moving parts but expect you to be comfortable in a terminal.
• Platforms on Kubernetes. Kubero, Canine, Epinio and Tsuru add a developer-friendly layer on top of a Kubernetes cluster. They suit teams that already run Kubernetes or want its portability; for one small server they are more than you need.

What self-hosting changes

A self-hosted platform gives you the deploy workflow, not the operations team behind a hosted service. You choose the servers and where they are, and you avoid usage-based bills for bandwidth or function time, but patching the operating system, watching disk space, backing up databases and recovering from a failed server are your job. None of these tools offers a global edge network or managed serverless functions like Vercel’s and Netlify’s: sites are served from your own machines, and a CDN is something you add separately. Hosted control planes such as Coolify Cloud, Dokploy Cloud and Canine Cloud run the dashboard for you, but your apps still run on servers you connect and maintain.

What to check before you choose

1. Runtime and scale. Plain Docker, Swarm or Kubernetes, and whether several servers are supported. Coolify can start an app on several servers but does not balance traffic between them; Swarm-based tools and the Kubernetes platforms can run replicas behind one entry point.
2. Build methods. Buildpacks, Nixpacks or Railpack detection, Dockerfiles, Docker Compose files or prebuilt images. Compose support matters if your app comes with workers and side services; check how much of the Compose specification each tool accepts.
3. Preview environments. Coolify, Dokploy, ZaneOps, Kubero and Canine can deploy pull requests to temporary environments; check which Git hosts they support and whether untrusted contributors could run code on your server.
4. Databases and backups. Managed databases with scheduled backups to S3-compatible storage, one-click services, or nothing at all.
5. Licensing and paid features. Coolify, CapRover’s core, Dokku, Kamal, Kubero, Uncloud, Epinio, Tsuru and Piku have no paid code in their main repositories. Dokploy keeps single sign-on and audit logs in source-available directories, ZaneOps limits unlicensed instances to one workspace and three users, and CapRover’s two-factor login is part of its paid Pro service.
6. Telemetry defaults. CapRover and ZaneOps send anonymous usage pings unless you turn them off.
7. Migration from Heroku. Dokku and Piku keep Heroku’s Procfile and config:set habits; Dokku, Canine and Epinio can build with buildpacks, so many Heroku apps move with few changes.

Data protection when you host it yourself

Moving off a hosted platform changes who handles your users’ data, not whether rules apply. Under the EU General Data Protection Regulation, a company that hosts personal data with a provider must use a processor that gives sufficient guarantees and must have a contract with it (Article 28). Whoever runs the servers must apply security measures appropriate to the risk (Article 32), and transfers to countries outside the EU must meet the conditions of Chapter V (Article 44 onward). Self-hosting on a server in a region you choose can simplify the transfer question, but your server provider is still a processor and the security work becomes yours. Hosted platforms document their own limits here: Heroku, for example, states that it makes no guarantee about the physical location of its control-plane APIs even when your dynos run in Europe.

Source-available projects not listed

Some well-known projects in this space are not open source and are left out. Sealos uses the Sealos Sustainable Use License, a modified fair-code license, and Cloudron requires a subscription for production use under its own license and is not hosted on GitHub. Dokku Pro, a paid web interface for Dokku, is a separate proprietary product. Komodo, a GPL-3.0 tool for building and deploying containers across many servers, is closer to container management than to a PaaS, so it is not listed here.