head to head · open source
portainer vs bunkerweb
portainer has 38,767 GitHub stars, 2,934 forks, 757 open issues and last shipped yesterday. bunkerweb has 11,208 stars, 666 forks, 170 open issues and last shipped yesterday. portainer leads on adoption by 246% (38,767 vs 11,208 stars). portainer is written in TypeScript under Zlib; bunkerweb is written in Python under AGPL-3.0. portainer has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, bunkerweb 6%. portainer was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (docker, kubernetes), 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 | bunkerweb | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 39K | ★ 11K |
| License | Zlib | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | Python |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.9K | ⑂ 666 |
| 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 bunkerweb if
- You want the bunkerweb feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and bunkerweb 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 bunkerweb
🌐 Website & 124; 🤝 Panel & 124; 📓 Documentation & 124; 👨💻 Demo & 124; 📱 Demo UI & 124; 🧩 Templates & 124; 🛡️ Examples 💬 Chat & 124; 📝 Forum & 124; 📝 Community & 124; 🗺️ Threatmap & 124; 📊 Status & 124; 🔎 Feedback 🛡️ Make security by default great again! BunkerWeb BunkerWeb is a next generation, open source Web Application Firewall (WAF). Being a full featured web server (based on NGINX under the hood), it will protect your web services to make them "secure by default." BunkerWeb integrates seamlessly into your existing environments (Linux, Docker, Swarm, Kubernetes, …) as a reverse proxy and is…
read the full bunkerweb overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is portainer or bunkerweb more popular?
portainer has 38,767 GitHub stars and bunkerweb has 11,208. portainer has the larger community by that measure.
Are portainer and bunkerweb free?
Both are open source. portainer is licensed under Zlib and bunkerweb under AGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between portainer and bunkerweb?
portainer is written in TypeScript and bunkerweb in Python. 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 bunkerweb?
Choose portainer if you want the larger community (38,767 stars) or its Zlib licence terms. Choose bunkerweb if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.