head to head · open source
portainer vs aws-cdk
portainer has 38,767 GitHub stars, 2,934 forks, 757 open issues and last shipped yesterday. aws-cdk has 12,958 stars, 4,665 forks, 2,863 open issues and last shipped yesterday. portainer leads on adoption by 199% (38,767 vs 12,958 stars). portainer is written in TypeScript under Zlib; aws-cdk is written in TypeScript under Apache-2.0. portainer has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, aws-cdk 36%. aws-cdk was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (hacktoberfest), 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
| portainer | aws-cdk | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 39K | ★ 13K |
| License | Zlib | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.9K | ⑂ 4.7K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick portainer if
- You weight community size — 39K stars and counting
- You want the Zlib license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick aws-cdk if
- You want the aws-cdk feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and aws-cdk fits your workflow better
About portainer
Portainer Community Edition is a free, lightweight container management UI for Docker, Swarm, Podman, Kubernetes, and ACI environments. It is provided as is, at no cost, for the convenience of homelab operators, hobbyists, students, and anyone experimenting with containers on their own hardware. Portainer Business Edition builds on the same open source base and adds the features, hardening, and commercial support that production and enterprise environments require (RBAC, GitOps, edge management, audit, SSO, and more). Find out more about Portainer Business Edition features Take3 – get 3 free nodes of Portainer…
read the full portainer overview →
About aws-cdk
AWS Cloud Development Kit (AWS CDK) The AWS Cloud Development Kit (AWS CDK) is an open source software development framework to define cloud infrastructure in code and provision it through AWS CloudFormation. It offers a high level object oriented abstraction to define AWS resources imperatively using the power of modern programming languages. Using the CDK’s library of infrastructure constructs, you can easily encapsulate AWS best practices in your infrastructure definition and share it without worrying about boilerplate logic. The CDK is available in the following languages: JavaScript, TypeScript (Node.js =…
read the full aws-cdk overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is portainer or aws-cdk more popular?
portainer has 38,767 GitHub stars and aws-cdk has 12,958. portainer has the larger community by that measure.
Are portainer and aws-cdk free?
Both are open source. portainer is licensed under Zlib and aws-cdk under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between portainer and aws-cdk?
portainer is written in TypeScript and aws-cdk 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, portainer or aws-cdk?
Choose portainer if you want the larger community (38,767 stars) or its Zlib licence terms. Choose aws-cdk if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.