head to head · open source
portainer vs spug
portainer has 38,524 GitHub stars, 2,906 forks, 757 open issues and last shipped yesterday. spug has 11,075 stars, 2,196 forks, 9 open issues and last shipped 3 days ago. portainer leads on adoption by 248% (38,524 vs 11,075 stars). portainer is written in TypeScript under Zlib; spug is written in JavaScript under AGPL-3.0. portainer has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, spug 20%. portainer 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 | spug | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 39K | ★ 11K |
| License | Zlib | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | JavaScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-09-16 |
| 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 spug if
- You want the spug feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You evaluated both and spug 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 spug
Spug is a lightweight, agent free automatic operations and maintenance platform for small and medium sized enterprises, combining host management, batch execution, a browser terminal, file management, application release, pipelines, task planning, a configuration center, monitoring, and alerting in one AGPL 3.0 open source system.
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Frequently asked questions
Is portainer or spug more popular?
portainer has 38,524 GitHub stars and spug has 11,075. portainer has the larger community by that measure.
Are portainer and spug free?
Both are open source. portainer is licensed under Zlib and spug under AGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between portainer and spug?
portainer is written in TypeScript and spug in JavaScript. 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 spug?
Choose portainer if you want the larger community (38,524 stars) or its Zlib licence terms. Choose spug if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.