head to head · open source
portainer vs mirrord
portainer has 38,524 GitHub stars, 2,906 forks, 757 open issues and last shipped yesterday. mirrord has 5,333 stars, 215 forks, 73 open issues and last shipped yesterday. portainer leads on adoption by 622% (38,524 vs 5,333 stars). portainer is written in TypeScript under Zlib; mirrord is written in Rust under MIT. portainer has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, mirrord 4%. mirrord was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee.
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 | mirrord | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 39K | ★ 5.3K |
| License | Zlib | MIT |
| Written in | TypeScript | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-09-18 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.9K | ⑂ 215 |
| 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 mirrord if
- You want the mirrord feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You evaluated both and mirrord 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 mirrord
mirrord is an MIT licensed Rust tool that runs any process, on a developer's machine or inside an AI coding agent's environment, as if it were a pod in a live Kubernetes cluster, with real environment variables, DNS, network, and traffic.
read the full mirrord overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is portainer or mirrord more popular?
portainer has 38,524 GitHub stars and mirrord has 5,333. portainer has the larger community by that measure.
Are portainer and mirrord free?
Both are open source. portainer is licensed under Zlib and mirrord under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between portainer and mirrord?
portainer is written in TypeScript and mirrord in Rust. 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 mirrord?
Choose portainer if you want the larger community (38,524 stars) or its Zlib licence terms. Choose mirrord if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.