head to head · open source
portainer vs CasaOS
portainer has 38,776 GitHub stars, 2,935 forks, 757 open issues and last shipped today. CasaOS has 37,543 stars, 2,215 forks, 833 open issues and last shipped 1 months ago. portainer leads on adoption by 3% (38,776 vs 37,543 stars). portainer is written in TypeScript under Zlib; CasaOS is written in Go under Apache-2.0. portainer has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, CasaOS 6%. portainer was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (docker), 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 | CasaOS | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 39K | ★ 38K |
| License | Zlib | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | Go |
| Last push | 2026-11-04 | 2026-09-28 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.9K | ⑂ 2.2K |
| 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 CasaOS if
- You want the CasaOS 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 CasaOS 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 CasaOS
CasaOS Your Personal Cloud Connect with the community, establish autonomy, reduce the cost of SaaS, and MAXIMIZE the potential for a personalized copilot. Website Demo GitHub Why do you need Personal Cloud? In 2020, the team noticed three important trends: The cost of computing power and storage was decreasing fast. A part of cloud computing was moving towards edge computing. The issue of consumer data asset ownership and attribution had been ignored. Based on these trends, the team proposed a thought experiment internally: what if personal clouds were available under $100 in next five years? This personal cloud…
read the full CasaOS overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is portainer or CasaOS more popular?
portainer has 38,776 GitHub stars and CasaOS has 37,543. portainer has the larger community by that measure.
Are portainer and CasaOS free?
Both are open source. portainer is licensed under Zlib and CasaOS under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between portainer and CasaOS?
portainer is written in TypeScript and CasaOS 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, portainer or CasaOS?
Choose portainer if you want the larger community (38,776 stars) or its Zlib licence terms. Choose CasaOS if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.