Deployment/PaaS

7 open source tools compared. Sorted by stars. Scroll down for our analysis.

Tool	Stars	Velocity	Language	License	Score
Coolify Self-hostable PaaS alternative to Vercel/Heroku	57.5k	+237/wk	PHP	Apache License 2.0	86
1Panel 🔥 1Panel is a modern, open-source VPS control panel — and the only one with native AI agent support. Run Ollama models, deploy OpenClaw agents, and manage your entire server stack from one clean web interface.	36.0k	-	Go	GNU General Public License v3.0	82
Dokku Docker-powered PaaS for app lifecycle management	32.0k	+17/wk	Shell	MIT License	85
CapRover Scalable PaaS with automated Docker+nginx	15.1k	+7/wk	TypeScript	Apache License 2.0	81
floci Light, fluffy, and always free - AWS Local Emulator	14.5k	+175/wk	Java	MIT License	77
zane-ops	1.3k	+5/wk	Python	MIT	66
swiftwave	822	+3/wk	Go	Apache-2.0	60

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Our Analysis

Coolify57.5k★

Coolify is a self-hosted PaaS that handles deployment, SSL, database provisioning, and reverse proxying for your applications. Point it at a server, connect your Git repos, and it handles builds, deployments, SSL certificates, and reverse proxying. It's your own private Heroku running on a $5/mo server. Self-hosting is free under Apache 2.0. You get automatic deployments from Git, built-in database provisioning (Postgres, MySQL, Redis, MongoDB), wildcard SSL via Let's Encrypt, and a clean dashboard. It's impressive how much it covers. The catch: you're trading money for ops time. When a deployment fails at 2 AM, there's no support team. It's you and the Docker logs. The managed cloud option starts at $5/mo per server but you're still managing the underlying infrastructure decisions. And Coolify itself needs updates, which occasionally break things if you're not careful with the upgrade path.

1Panel36.0k★

1Panel is a control panel for your server: a web dashboard that lets you install apps, host websites, manage Docker containers, set up SSL, and schedule backups without living in the command line. It's the open source answer to cPanel, with a 165-app marketplace and native AI agent support so you can spin up local LLMs through Ollama right from the UI. GPLv3 and free for the community edition. The ops reality is the host itself. 1Panel runs on a Linux VPS with as little as 1GB of RAM, and once it's installed it takes most of the busywork off your plate. You still own patching the OS and securing SSH, but deploying and updating apps gets a lot friendlier. Solo and small: the free edition is plenty for a single box, and the price is zero. Teams running more than one server hit the wall fast, since multi-node management and the advanced WAF live in Pro at $80/year. That is fair pricing for what you get. The catch: a control panel is a big attack surface sitting in front of everything on your server. Lock down the login, keep it patched, and don't expose the admin port to the open internet, because one compromised panel hands over the whole machine.

CapRover15.1k★

CapRover is a platform-as-a-service (PaaS) you install on your own server. One-click apps, automatic SSL via Let's Encrypt, Docker under the hood. Setup takes about 20 minutes on a fresh Ubuntu server. After that, you get a web dashboard where you can deploy apps from Git, Docker images, or one-click templates (WordPress, Postgres, Redis, Ghost, etc.). It handles nginx reverse proxying, SSL certificates, and Docker orchestration automatically. Mature and stable. The community is active and the one-click app library is extensive. Completely free. No paid tier. No cloud offering. You bring the server, CapRover runs on it. The catch: single-server by default. You can add worker nodes for horizontal scaling, but it's Docker Swarm underneath, not Kubernetes. For most small-to-medium workloads, that's fine. But if you're scaling to dozens of services, Coolify (which also does this) has more active development, or Dokku if you want something even simpler. CapRover's web UI is functional but dated. And if something breaks at the Docker/nginx layer, you're debugging it yourself.

floci14.5k★

Floci is a drop-in replacement for LocalStack that's actually free. This matters because LocalStack is sunsetting its free community tier in March 2026. Floci starts in ~24ms, uses ~13 MiB of memory, and the Docker image is ~90 MB vs LocalStack's ~1 GB. It runs on port 4566 (the same port LocalStack uses), so switching requires zero code changes. Built in Java with Quarkus, compiled to a native binary via GraalVM. MIT licensed. Already supports CloudFormation, Step Functions, DynamoDB Streams, Kinesis, Cognito, KMS, Secrets Manager, EventBridge, CloudWatch, API Gateway v2, and more. The catch: it's new and playing catch-up on AWS service coverage. LocalStack has years of edge cases handled. If you use an obscure AWS service, Floci might not emulate it yet. And 'no auth token required' means no telemetry, but also no commercial support if things break.

zane-ops1.3k★

ZaneOps is a self-hosted PaaS (platform-as-a-service) that aims to be the open source Heroku/Railway. Push your code or Docker image, ZaneOps handles deployment, HTTPS, environment variables, and scaling on your own server. Built in Python with a modern UI, it targets developers who want the convenience of Heroku but on their own $5-20/mo VPS. Zero-downtime deployments, automatic SSL via Let's Encrypt, and a clean dashboard. MIT, fully free. No paid tier. The catch: this is very early. Small team, and competing against Coolify which does the same thing with a much larger community. The feature set is thinner: no built-in database management, fewer one-click app templates, less documentation. If you want a self-hosted PaaS today, Coolify is the safer bet. ZaneOps is interesting to watch if you prefer its Python stack or UI approach, but it's not production-ready for anything critical.

swiftwave822★

Swiftwave handles it. Point it at a VPS, push your code, and it builds, deploys, and manages SSL certificates automatically. Think Coolify or Dokku but written in Go with a focus on simplicity over features. Everything is free under Apache 2.0. No paid tier, no hosted cloud version. You get Git-based deployments, automatic SSL via Let's Encrypt, a web dashboard, and built-in support for Postgres, MySQL, Redis, and MongoDB. The setup is straightforward: single binary, minimal dependencies. The catch: this is early-stage. The community is small, documentation has gaps, and you're betting on a project that hasn't proven long-term sustainability. Coolify has 10x the community and more features. Swiftwave's advantage is simplicity (fewer moving parts, less config), but that also means fewer escape hatches when you need something custom.