head to head · open source
portainer vs floci
portainer has 38,767 GitHub stars, 2,934 forks, 757 open issues and last shipped yesterday. floci has 27,815 stars, 3,110 forks, 130 open issues and last shipped yesterday. portainer leads on adoption by 39% (38,767 vs 27,815 stars). portainer is written in TypeScript under Zlib; floci is written in Java under MIT. portainer has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, floci 11%. floci 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 | floci | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 39K | ★ 28K |
| License | Zlib | MIT |
| Written in | TypeScript | Java |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.9K | ⑂ 3.1K |
| 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 floci if
- You want the floci feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Java
- You evaluated both and floci 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 floci
Any Cloud. Locally. Light, fluffy, and always free No account. No auth token. No feature gates. Just docker compose up . Quick Start · Features · Services · SDKs · Testcontainers · Migration · Docs What is Floci? Floci is a free, open source local AWS emulator for development, testing, and CI. It gives you AWS shaped services on your machine without requiring a cloud account, an auth token, or paid feature gates. Point your AWS SDK, CLI, Terraform, CDK, OpenTofu, or test suite at and keep your existing workflows. Already using LocalStack? Floci is a drop in replacement: swap the image and keep going. See…
read the full floci overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is portainer or floci more popular?
portainer has 38,767 GitHub stars and floci has 27,815. portainer has the larger community by that measure.
Are portainer and floci free?
Both are open source. portainer is licensed under Zlib and floci under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between portainer and floci?
portainer is written in TypeScript and floci in Java. 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 floci?
Choose portainer if you want the larger community (38,767 stars) or its Zlib licence terms. Choose floci if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.