Open-source Heroku alternatives

Coolify is an open-source, self-hostable alternative to Heroku, Vercel and Netlify. It manages servers, applications and databases on hardware you control, and the only requirement is SSH access, so a VPS, a bare-metal machine or even a Raspberry Pi can serve as a target. Your configuration stays on your own servers, and if you stop using Coolify the resources it deployed keep running.

Applications can be built from GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket or Gitea using Nixpacks, Railpack, a Dockerfile, Docker Compose or a prebuilt image. Hundreds of one-click services and managed-style databases come with persistent storage and generated credentials. Deployments can run on every push, create pull-request previews, call webhooks and roll back to retained images. Custom domains, automatic HTTPS, reverse proxies and health checks cover networking, while logs, container terminals and resource monitoring help with operations.

Backups, scheduled tasks, secrets, environment variables and notifications are built in, and resources can be managed through the dashboard, an API, a CLI or MCP, with team-based access controls. Coolify is Apache-2.0 licensed and built mainly with PHP; a hosted Coolify Cloud option exists for people who prefer not to run the control plane themselves.

Dokploy is an open-source, self-hostable platform as a service that simplifies deploying and managing applications and databases. It is positioned as an alternative to Heroku, Vercel and Netlify, and it runs on a VPS you control, installed with a single command.

It can deploy apps in languages such as Node.js, PHP, Python, Go and Ruby, create and manage MySQL, PostgreSQL, MongoDB, MariaDB, libsql and Redis databases, and schedule database backups to external storage. Docker Compose is supported natively, and multiple nodes can be clustered with Docker Swarm or managed as remote servers. One-click templates cover open-source apps such as Plausible, PocketBase and Cal.com, Traefik handles routing and load balancing, and live monitoring shows CPU, memory, storage and network usage per resource.

A CLI and API allow automation, and notifications about deploy success or failure can go to Slack, Discord, Telegram or email. The license is listed as 'Other', so check the repository terms before redistribution. For people who want to skip installation there is a hosted Dokploy Cloud.

Dokku is a Docker-powered platform as a service that you install on your own server. It is billed as the smallest PaaS implementation around and as an open-source alternative to Heroku, helping you build and manage the full lifecycle of applications, from building them to scaling them.

Installation uses a bootstrap script that you run on a fresh server, after which you set a global domain and add your SSH key to the dokku user, then create apps and deploy to them. Topics refer to buildpack-based builds, containers, and scheduler support for Docker, Kubernetes and Nomad. The project has documentation, a blog, community chat on Discord, Slack and IRC, GitHub Discussions, and a Pro offering listed on the site.

Dokku is MIT licensed and written in Go and shell, with sponsors and backers supporting its development. It suits developers who like the Heroku workflow but want to run it on their own VPS for less cost or more control.

Sealos describes itself as an AI-native cloud operating system built on Kubernetes. It aims to cover the whole application lifecycle in one platform, from development in cloud IDEs to production deployment and day-to-day management, and it targets teams building AI applications, SaaS platforms, managed databases and microservice architectures.

Core pieces include Devbox cloud development environments that can be opened from editors such as VS Code and Cursor, managed MySQL, PostgreSQL, MongoDB and Redis databases, S3-compatible object storage, and an App Launchpad for deploying Docker images. An app store offers one-click deployment of larger applications, and workspace-based multi-tenancy supports enterprise use. Full Kubernetes remains accessible underneath.

Sealos is written mainly in TypeScript and Go and runs on Kubernetes. Repository topics point to cluster installation features such as high-availability Kubernetes through kubeadm, and the project offers a hosted cloud at sealos.io. The repository lists the license as 'Other', so check the license file for the exact terms.

CapRover is a deployment platform and web server manager that you install on your own server. It lets you run applications written in NodeJS, Python, PHP, ASP.NET, Ruby and Go, as well as databases like MariaDB, MySQL, MongoDB and Postgres, and apps such as WordPress, without needing deep Docker or nginx knowledge. It is often called a Heroku alternative.

Under the hood it uses Docker Swarm for containerization and clustering, nginx with a customizable template for load balancing, Let's Encrypt for free HTTPS certificates, and NetData for monitoring. You work through a web GUI for convenience or a CLI for automation and scripting. The project emphasizes that there is no lock-in: if you remove CapRover, your apps keep working. It targets developers who do not want to spend days setting up servers, builds, certificates and proxy configuration.

CapRover is written in TypeScript on Node.js, and its license is listed as 'Other' on GitHub, so confirm the terms. It is self-hosted software with no vendor service involved, and it suits small teams and solo developers running several apps on their own VPS.

Kamal is a deployment tool for web applications that can run anywhere, from bare metal servers to cloud virtual machines. It uses a proxy component called kamal-proxy to switch requests between containers without downtime, and it works across multiple servers by running commands over SSH using SSHKit.

Originally built for Rails applications, Kamal works with any web app that can be packaged in a Docker container. Documentation on installation, configuration and commands is on kamal-deploy.org, and the documentation itself lives in a separate repository where improvements are welcome.

Kamal is written in Ruby, developed by Basecamp, and released under the MIT license. Because it deploys to servers you control, it suits teams who want a simple alternative to hosted platforms while still getting rolling, zero-downtime releases.

Openship is an open-source deployment platform that you can host yourself. You point it at a repository and it builds the app, ships it to a server, routes traffic to it and terminates TLS, with CI/CD built in so that pushes to a repository can trigger new deployments.

You can drive it from a desktop app, a web dashboard or a command-line tool. The desktop app runs the control plane on your own machine while it is open and connects to a server over SSH, which suits solo use. A self-hosted server started with the openship up command adds push-to-deploy and team access. Applications can run on that same machine, on another server, or on Openship Cloud, a managed option based on sandboxes.

The project is licensed under Apache-2.0 and written in TypeScript. Its tagline stresses owning your infrastructure, and the repository lists AI agents among its themes. It fits individuals and small teams that want a self-run alternative to managed deployment platforms.

Piku is an open-source, minimalist platform-as-a-service for people who like the git push deployment workflow popularized by Heroku but want to run it on their own hardware. It was inspired by Dokku and is designed to work on very small machines, including ARM boards such as the Raspberry Pi, as well as ordinary Ubuntu or Raspbian servers and cloud VMs.

You deploy by pushing to a git remote on your server. Piku reads a Procfile to learn which processes to run and uses environment settings to configure each app, with Python and Node.js applications among the supported kinds. The project documents several install paths, including cloud-init and manual setup, and offers a command line interface, a roadmap, examples and a discussion forum. The maintainers describe the project as stable.

Piku is released under the MIT license and is meant to be self-hosted; there is no managed cloud version. It suits hobbyists, small teams and edge deployments that want a lightweight way to host apps without running Kubernetes or a full container platform.

Rainbond is an open-source application platform that sits on top of Kubernetes and hides most of its complexity. Teams use a graphical interface to build, deploy, assemble and manage applications, so developers and operators without Kubernetes expertise can still run workloads on clusters.

The project describes a unified way to deploy ordinary business applications, projects generated by AI, open-source AI tools and LLM services, with AI assisting in deployment and operation. It targets private, self-hosted deployments on your own servers or Kubernetes clusters, and its README states that the core capabilities are fully open source.

The code is written in Go and published under a license that GitHub lists as 'Other', so review its terms before adopting it. Documentation and a Chinese-language README are provided, and the platform suits teams that want an internal PaaS and application delivery layer over Kubernetes.

Tsuru is an open-source, extensible platform as a service designed to make application deployment faster and easier. For developers the idea is that servers fade into the background: you write apps in the language of your choice and let Tsuru handle running them on containers.

Apps can attach services like relational and NoSQL databases, memcached or Redis, and are managed through the tsuru command-line tool. The platform is built in Go and uses Docker and Kubernetes under the hood, with documentation, a landing page and contributor instructions based on docker-compose. Its extensibility lets operators plug in their own providers and resources.

Tsuru is licensed under BSD-3-Clause and is run by you on your own infrastructure or cloud accounts. It suits platform and DevOps teams that want to offer their developers an internal, Heroku-style PaaS.