What is SwiftWave used for?

SwiftWave is a self-hosted, lightweight PaaS for deploying and managing applications on any server, positioned as an alternative to Heroku, Netlify and Render. It is a good fit for hosting side projects on a low-cost VPS and deploying apps on a Raspberry Pi.

Is SwiftWave open source?

Yes. SwiftWave is open source under the Apache-2.0 licence. Its source code is on GitHub at swiftwave-org/swiftwave and is written mainly in Go.

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

Can I self-host SwiftWave?

Yes. SwiftWave can be self-hosted on your own server or infrastructure.

What is SwiftWave an alternative to?

SwiftWave is an open-source alternative to Heroku, Render, Netlify and Cloudflare Pages. Other open-source alternatives to Heroku include Coolify, Dokploy and ZaneOps.

Is SwiftWave actively maintained?

Yes. The most recent commit to SwiftWave was on 25 September 2026, and the latest release is 2.23.1-1, published on 2 August 2026. The project has 905 stars on GitHub.

SwiftWave: open-source alternative to Heroku, Render

About SwiftWave

SwiftWave is an open-source platform as a service that you run on your own server. It lets you deploy and manage applications on a bare-metal machine, a Raspberry Pi or any VPS, giving a Heroku-like workflow without relying on a managed platform.

The project positions itself as an open-source alternative to Heroku, Netlify and Render. It uses Docker, with Swarm mode among its topics, and is described as lightweight. SwiftWave and its dependencies support AMD64, ARM64 and ARMv7 architectures and run on Debian, Ubuntu, Raspbian, Fedora, CentOS, AlmaLinux, Rocky Linux and similar distributions.

It can be installed on providers such as Hetzner, DigitalOcean, Linode, AWS or GCP following the guide on swiftwave.org, and it is released under the Apache-2.0 license. The team runs a community Slack channel and accepts sponsorship through GitHub Sponsors.

Key features

Deploy apps on any VPS or bare metal
Docker-based application management
Runs on AMD64, ARM64 and ARMv7
Works on Raspberry Pi
Docker Swarm mode support
Installs on common Linux distributions

Good fit for

→Self-hosted alternative to Heroku
→Hosting side projects on a low-cost VPS
→Deploying apps on a Raspberry Pi

Built with: Go; Docker
Tags: paas; self-hosted; docker; heroku-alternative; deployment; golang; swarm

SwiftWave: questions and answers

What is SwiftWave used for?: SwiftWave is a self-hosted, lightweight PaaS for deploying and managing applications on any server, positioned as an alternative to Heroku, Netlify and Render. It is a good fit for hosting side projects on a low-cost VPS and deploying apps on a Raspberry Pi.
Is SwiftWave open source?: Yes. SwiftWave is open source under the Apache-2.0 licence. Its source code is on GitHub at swiftwave-org/swiftwave and is written mainly in Go.
Is SwiftWave free?: Yes. SwiftWave is open source, so the software itself is free to use.
Can I self-host SwiftWave?: Yes. SwiftWave can be self-hosted on your own server or infrastructure.
What is SwiftWave an alternative to?: SwiftWave is an open-source alternative to Heroku, Render, Netlify and Cloudflare Pages. Other open-source alternatives to Heroku include Coolify, Dokploy and ZaneOps.
Is SwiftWave actively maintained?: Yes. The most recent commit to SwiftWave was on 25 September 2026, and the latest release is 2.23.1-1, published on 2 August 2026. The project has 905 stars on GitHub.