head to head · open source
Dokku vs devbox
Dokku has 32,222 GitHub stars, 2,098 forks, 36 open issues and last shipped yesterday. devbox has 12,440 stars, 364 forks, 466 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. Dokku leads on adoption by 159% (32,222 vs 12,440 stars). Dokku is written in Go under MIT; devbox is written in Go under Apache-2.0. Dokku has attracted 7% as many forks as stars, devbox 3%. Dokku was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (buildpack, containers), 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
| Dokku | devbox | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 32K | ★ 12K |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | Go |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-01 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.1K | ⑂ 364 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Dokku if
- You weight community size — 32K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick devbox if
- You want the devbox feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and devbox fits your workflow better
About Dokku
Dokku Docker powered mini Heroku. The smallest PaaS implementation you've ever seen. Sponsors Become a sponsor and get your logo on our README on GitHub with a link to your site. [Become a sponsor] Backers Support us with a monthly donation and help us continue our activities. [Become a backer] [ ](
read the full Dokku overview →
About devbox
Devbox Instant, easy, and predictable development environments What is it? Devbox is a command line tool that lets you easily create isolated shells for development. You start by defining the list of packages required by your development environment, and devbox uses that definition to create an isolated environment just for your application. In practice, Devbox works similar to a package manager like yarn – except the packages it manages are at the operating system level (the sort of thing you would normally install with brew or apt get ). With Devbox, you can install over 400,000 package versions from the Nix…
read the full devbox overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Dokku or devbox more popular?
Dokku has 32,222 GitHub stars and devbox has 12,440. Dokku has the larger community by that measure.
Are Dokku and devbox free?
Both are open source. Dokku is licensed under MIT and devbox under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Dokku and devbox?
Dokku is written in Go and devbox in Go. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, Dokku or devbox?
Choose Dokku if you want the larger community (32,222 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose devbox if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.