Coolify

Coolify is the self-hosted Vercel/Netlify/Heroku that's actually good. Deploy from Git, automatic HTTPS, database provisioning, Docker Compose support — all from a polished UI on your own server. It's the PaaS that respects your wallet and your data.

If you're spending $20+/month on Vercel or Railway and have a VPS sitting around, Coolify pays for itself immediately. CapRover does similar things but feels dated. Dokku is CLI-only and less approachable. Render and Railway are managed but not self-hosted. Kubernetes is overkill for most indie projects.

Best for indie hackers who want one-click deployments on their own hardware. The managed database provisioning (Postgres, MySQL, Redis, MongoDB) from the UI is a killer feature.

The catch: you need a server with decent specs (2GB+ RAM). Self-hosted means you're responsible for security updates and backups. The project moves fast — updates occasionally break things. And complex setups (microservices, custom networking) still need Docker Compose knowledge.