head to head · open source
portainer vs robusta
portainer has 38,767 GitHub stars, 2,934 forks, 757 open issues and last shipped yesterday. robusta has 3,128 stars, 327 forks, 204 open issues and last shipped yesterday. portainer leads on adoption by 1,139% (38,767 vs 3,128 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%. robusta 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 | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.9K | ⑂ 327 |
| 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. 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 robusta
Robusta Classic Prometheus Alert Enrichment for Kubernetes Note: This repository contains Robusta Classic — the rule based alert enrichment engine. For AI powered root cause analysis, see HolmesGPT. Both can be installed together as part of the Robusta platform. What Can Robusta Do? How it Works Installation Integrations ↗ Docs ↗ Slack Community ↗ Compatible with kube prometheus stack, Prometheus Operator, and more. Robusta integrates with Prometheus by webhook and adds features like: Smart Grouping reduce notification spam with Slack threads 🧵 AI Investigation Kickstart alert investigation with AI (optional)…
read the full robusta overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is portainer or robusta more popular?
portainer has 38,767 GitHub stars and robusta has 3,128. 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 (38,767 stars) or its Zlib licence terms. Choose robusta if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.