head to head · open source
portainer vs robusta
portainer has 38,524 GitHub stars, 2,906 forks, 757 open issues and last shipped yesterday. robusta has 3,099 stars, 325 forks, 204 open issues and last shipped 3 days ago. portainer leads on adoption by 1,143% (38,524 vs 3,099 stars). portainer is written in TypeScript under Zlib; robusta is written in Python under MIT. portainer has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, robusta 10%. 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 | robusta | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 39K | ★ 3.1K |
| License | Zlib | MIT |
| Written in | TypeScript | Python |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-09-16 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.9K | ⑂ 325 |
| 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 robusta if
- You want the robusta feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and robusta 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 robusta
Robusta is an open source alerting and monitoring project for Kubernetes, written in Python and released under the MIT license. The repository contains Robusta Classic, a rule based alert enrichment engine that connects to Prometheus through a webhook and adds operational context to alerts. It lives in the Kubernetes monitoring ecosystem and is compatible with kube prometheus stack, Prometheus Operator, and other Prometheus based setups.
read the full robusta overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is portainer or robusta more popular?
portainer has 38,524 GitHub stars and robusta has 3,099. portainer has the larger community by that measure.
Are portainer and robusta free?
Both are open source. portainer is licensed under Zlib and robusta under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between portainer and robusta?
portainer is written in TypeScript and robusta 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 robusta?
Choose portainer if you want the larger community (38,524 stars) or its Zlib licence terms. Choose robusta if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.