What is ZaneOps used for?

ZaneOps is a self-hosted platform-as-a-service for deploying web apps, databases and static sites, built on Docker Swarm and Caddy as a Heroku alternative. It is a good fit for replacing Heroku with self-hosted infrastructure, hosting side projects on a single VPS and running apps like WordPress or Ghost on your own server.

Is ZaneOps open source?

Yes. ZaneOps is open source under a custom licence. Its source code is on GitHub at zane-ops/zane-ops and is written mainly in Python.

Yes. ZaneOps is open source, so the software itself is free to use under the terms of its own licence.

Can I self-host ZaneOps?

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

What is ZaneOps an alternative to?

ZaneOps is an open-source alternative to Heroku, Vercel, Railway and Render. Other open-source alternatives to Heroku include Coolify, Dokploy and Openship.

Is ZaneOps actively maintained?

Yes. The most recent commit to ZaneOps was on 1 October 2026, and the latest release is v1.15.1, published on 25 September 2026. The project has 1.4k stars on GitHub.

ZaneOps: open-source alternative to Heroku, Vercel, Railway

About ZaneOps

ZaneOps is an open-source, self-hosted platform for deploying and managing applications on your own servers. It can host static sites, web apps, databases, workers and prepackaged services such as Supabase, WordPress or Ghost, and it is positioned as a free alternative to Heroku, Railway and Render.

Under the hood it uses Docker Swarm for scalability and Caddy for routing, and it presents a dashboard with onboarding, project views, HTTP logs and runtime logs. Projects group related services together, and the documentation covers installation steps and further setup. The project says it was inspired by Plane for its contribution guidelines and by Coolify and Dokploy as other self-hosted deployment tools.

ZaneOps is written in Python, and its licence is listed as other, so review the repository terms before relying on it. It is installed on a server you control, with a milestone-based public roadmap. It suits solo developers, startups and teams that want a Heroku-style workflow without paying for a managed PaaS or giving up control of their infrastructure.

Key features

Deploy web apps, databases, and static sites
Docker Swarm based scaling
Caddy for routing and HTTPS
Dashboard with HTTP and runtime logs
Projects grouping related services
One-command server installation

Good fit for

→Replacing Heroku with self-hosted infrastructure
→Hosting side projects on a single VPS
→Running apps like WordPress or Ghost on your own server

Built with: Python
Tags: paas; self-hosted; deployment; docker-swarm; caddy; heroku-alternative; hosting; devops; python

ZaneOps: questions and answers

What is ZaneOps used for?: ZaneOps is a self-hosted platform-as-a-service for deploying web apps, databases and static sites, built on Docker Swarm and Caddy as a Heroku alternative. It is a good fit for replacing Heroku with self-hosted infrastructure, hosting side projects on a single VPS and running apps like WordPress or Ghost on your own server.
Is ZaneOps open source?: Yes. ZaneOps is open source under a custom licence. Its source code is on GitHub at zane-ops/zane-ops and is written mainly in Python.
Is ZaneOps free?: Yes. ZaneOps is open source, so the software itself is free to use under the terms of its own licence.
Can I self-host ZaneOps?: Yes. ZaneOps can be self-hosted on your own server or infrastructure; there is no official hosted version.
What is ZaneOps an alternative to?: ZaneOps is an open-source alternative to Heroku, Vercel, Railway and Render. Other open-source alternatives to Heroku include Coolify, Dokploy and Openship.
Is ZaneOps actively maintained?: Yes. The most recent commit to ZaneOps was on 1 October 2026, and the latest release is v1.15.1, published on 25 September 2026. The project has 1.4k stars on GitHub.