The landscape, honestly
Coolify, Dokploy, CapRover, Dokku, Railway, Render, Heroku — and where Pushify fits. Real licenses, real prices, no fake rankings.
Every tool below is genuinely good at something — we use several of them ourselves. This page states what each one is, what it costs, and who it fits best, based on public information. Where Pushify is weaker, the table says so.
Public information as of July 2026 — licenses and prices change. Spot an error? Email us and we will correct it.
| Platform | License | Self-host | Managed cloud | Paid from | Pricing model |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pushify | MIT | $0 self-host | Flat monthly per server | ||
| Coolify | Apache-2.0 | $0 self-host · cloud from $5/mo | Flat | ||
| Dokploy | Source-available | $0 self-host · cloud ~$4.50/server/mo | Flat per server | ||
| CapRover | MIT | — | $0 — no paid tier | — | |
| Dokku | MIT (core) | — | $0 · Pro is a paid add-on | One-time (Pro) |
| Platform | License | Self-host | Managed cloud | Paid from | Pricing model |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Heroku | Proprietary | — | $5 Eco (sleeps) · $7 Basic dyno | Per dyno + add-ons | |
| Railway | Proprietary | — | $5/mo Hobby (incl. $5 usage) | Usage-based | |
| Render | Proprietary | — | $7/mo per always-on service | Plan + compute |
The most popular self-hosted PaaS: Apache-2.0 licensed, free to self-host, with an optional managed cloud from $5/mo. Strong GUI, PR preview deployments, multi-server support and a very large community. v4 reached stable in early 2026 after a long beta.
Best for: Teams that want the biggest community and a mature GUI-first self-hosted platform.
A fast-rising alternative (30k+ GitHub stars): free to self-host, with a managed option around $4.50/server/mo. Built on Docker Swarm, often described as lighter and snappier than Coolify. Note the license is source-available rather than a classic OSI license.
Best for: Developers who want a light, quick UI on Docker Swarm and are fine with a source-available license.
Free and MIT-licensed with no paid tier at all. Docker Swarm based with a one-click app catalog. Very stable and battle-tested, though development pace has slowed compared to Coolify and Dokploy.
Best for: Homelabs and stability-first setups that value a zero-cost, proven tool over new features.
The original 'mini-Heroku', a decade old and MIT-licensed at the core. CLI-first — there is no web UI by default (Dokku Pro sells one). Single-server by design; scaling beyond one box means manual work.
Best for: Solo developers comfortable in a terminal who want the simplest possible single-server workflow.
The managed platform that invented git-push deploys. Zero server responsibility and a 10+ year add-on ecosystem, but no self-hosting, and the free tier was removed in 2022 — a small always-on app with a database starts around $12/mo (Basic dyno $7 + smallest Postgres $5).
Best for: Teams that want zero ops and enterprise compliance, and accept per-dyno pricing.
A polished managed platform with usage-based billing: the Hobby plan is $5/mo including $5 of usage; a trial gives one-time $5 credit. No self-host option — your workloads run on Railway's infrastructure.
Best for: Side projects and small teams that want a beautiful managed experience and accept usage-based bills.
A managed platform with a limited free tier (services sleep after 15 minutes) and always-on services from $7/mo each. In 2026 it moved to flat plan fees plus compute, dropping per-seat pricing. No self-host option.
Best for: Teams that want Heroku-style simplicity with a modern dashboard and predictable per-service prices.
Pushify is MIT-licensed and self-hostable free of charge, like Coolify or CapRover — but it also runs as a managed cloud that can provision Hetzner servers for you at flat monthly prices, or deploy to any VPS you bring. On top of deployments it bundles things the others treat as out of scope: managed databases with backups, a 24-app marketplace, PR previews, cron, volumes, scale-to-zero, an AI assistant, a no-code site builder and built-in domain purchasing. It is younger than every tool above — the community is smaller, and some integrations (for example a GitHub App) are still maturing.
Best for: Developers who want one tool to cover deploys, databases, domains and sites — self-hosted or managed — and accept a younger ecosystem.
This page reflects publicly available information and may go out of date. It intentionally contains no invented benchmarks, star counts or testimonials.
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