head to head · open source
Coolify vs portainer
Coolify has 62,040 GitHub stars, 5,500 forks, 649 open issues and last shipped yesterday. portainer has 38,526 stars, 2,907 forks, 757 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. Coolify leads on adoption by 61% (62,040 vs 38,526 stars). Coolify is written in PHP under Apache-2.0; portainer is written in TypeScript under Zlib. Coolify has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, portainer 8%. Coolify was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (docker, docker-compose), so they are genuine substitutes rather than adjacent tools.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
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Side by side
| Coolify | portainer | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 62K | ★ 39K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Zlib |
| Written in | PHP | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-19 | 2026-09-18 |
| Forks | ⑂ 5.5K | ⑂ 2.9K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Coolify if
- You weight community size — 62K stars and counting
- You want the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches PHP
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick portainer if
- You want the portainer feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Zlib license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and portainer fits your workflow better
About Coolify
Coolify is an open source, self hostable Platform as a Service (PaaS) designed to replace commercial services like Vercel, Heroku, and Netlify. It runs on user provided infrastructure—VPS, bare metal, or Raspberry Pi—and automates deployment, scaling, and management of applications, databases, and services using Docker and Docker Compose. Built with Laravel and PHP, it lives in the infrastructure and operations ecosystem, targeting developers and DevOps teams seeking vendor lock in free control over their deployment stack.
read the full Coolify overview →
About portainer
Portainer Community Edition is a free, lightweight container management UI for Docker, Swarm, Podman, Kubernetes, and ACI environments, distributed under the zlib licence and aimed at homelab operators, hobbyists, students, and anyone experimenting with containers on their own hardware.
read the full portainer overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Coolify or portainer more popular?
Coolify has 62,040 GitHub stars and portainer has 38,526. Coolify has the larger community by that measure.
Are Coolify and portainer free?
Both are open source. Coolify is licensed under Apache-2.0 and portainer under Zlib. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Coolify and portainer?
Coolify is written in PHP and portainer in TypeScript. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, Coolify or portainer?
Choose Coolify if you want the larger community (62,040 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose portainer if its feature set, stack or Zlib licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.