head to head · open source
portainer vs bunkerweb
portainer has 38,524 GitHub stars, 2,906 forks, 757 open issues and last shipped yesterday. bunkerweb has 10,976 stars, 642 forks, 170 open issues and last shipped yesterday. portainer leads on adoption by 251% (38,524 vs 10,976 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%. bunkerweb 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 | 2026-09-18 | 2026-09-18 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.9K | ⑂ 642 |
| 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, 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 →
About bunkerweb
BunkerWeb is a next generation, open source, cloud native Web Application Firewall built as a full featured web server on top of NGINX, designed to make web services secure by default, and it is aimed at teams running web services on Linux, Docker, Swarm, or Kubernetes who want protection in place as a reverse proxy rather than assembled by hand.
read the full bunkerweb overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is portainer or bunkerweb more popular?
portainer has 38,524 GitHub stars and bunkerweb has 10,976. 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 (38,524 stars) or its Zlib licence terms. Choose bunkerweb if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.