What is Piku used for?

Piku is a tiny self-hosted platform-as-a-service that lets you deploy apps with git push to your own servers, from cloud VMs down to a Raspberry Pi. It is a good fit for hosting side projects on a cheap VPS, deploying apps to Raspberry Pi devices and Heroku-style workflow without a managed PaaS.

Yes. Piku is open source under the MIT licence. Its source code is on GitHub at piku/piku and is written mainly in Python.

Yes. Piku is open source, so the software itself is free to use.

Can I self-host Piku?

Yes. Piku can be self-hosted on your own server or infrastructure; there is no official hosted version.

What is Piku an alternative to?

Piku is an open-source alternative to Heroku, Scalingo and PythonAnywhere. Other open-source alternatives to Heroku include Coolify, Dokploy and Dokku.

Is Piku actively maintained?

Yes. The most recent commit to Piku was on 4 September 2026, and the latest release is v1.0.0, published on 6 April 2024. The project has 6.6k stars on GitHub.

Piku: open-source alternative to Heroku, Scalingo

About Piku

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.

Key features

Git push deployments to your own server
Procfile-based process definitions
Per-app environment variable configuration
Runs on small ARM boards like Raspberry Pi
Support for Python and Node.js apps
Installation via cloud-init or manual setup

Good fit for

→Hosting side projects on a cheap VPS
→Deploying apps to Raspberry Pi devices
→Heroku-style workflow without a managed PaaS

Built with: Python; Node.js
Tags: paas; git-push; self-hosted; deployment; raspberry-pi; python; nodejs

Piku: questions and answers

What is Piku used for?: Piku is a tiny self-hosted platform-as-a-service that lets you deploy apps with git push to your own servers, from cloud VMs down to a Raspberry Pi. It is a good fit for hosting side projects on a cheap VPS, deploying apps to Raspberry Pi devices and Heroku-style workflow without a managed PaaS.
Is Piku open source?: Yes. Piku is open source under the MIT licence. Its source code is on GitHub at piku/piku and is written mainly in Python.
Is Piku free?: Yes. Piku is open source, so the software itself is free to use.
Can I self-host Piku?: Yes. Piku can be self-hosted on your own server or infrastructure; there is no official hosted version.
What is Piku an alternative to?: Piku is an open-source alternative to Heroku, Scalingo and PythonAnywhere. Other open-source alternatives to Heroku include Coolify, Dokploy and Dokku.
Is Piku actively maintained?: Yes. The most recent commit to Piku was on 4 September 2026, and the latest release is v1.0.0, published on 6 April 2024. The project has 6.6k stars on GitHub.