head to head · open source
portainer vs Terrateam
portainer has 38,767 GitHub stars, 2,934 forks, 757 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Terrateam has 1,326 stars, 84 forks, 110 open issues and last shipped yesterday. portainer leads on adoption by 2,824% (38,767 vs 1,326 stars). portainer is written in TypeScript under Zlib; Terrateam is written in OCaml under MPL-2.0. portainer has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, Terrateam 6%. Terrateam 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 | Terrateam | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 39K | ★ 1.3K |
| License | Zlib | MPL-2.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | OCaml |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.9K | ⑂ 84 |
| 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 Terrateam if
- You want the Terrateam feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MPL-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches OCaml
- You evaluated both and Terrateam 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 Terrateam
Terraform without the state file bottleneck One state file means one global lock. Stategraph replaces it with a dependency graph. Plan and apply time is proportional to the size of your change, not the size of your state file, and changes that touch different resources run at the same time. [!NOTE] Terrateam and Stategraph have merged into one platform. We're transitioning gradually; existing Terrateam setups keep working unchanged. During the transition: Stategraph Orchestration (formerly Terrateam) → app.terrateam.io · docs.terrateam.io Stategraph Infrastructure as a Database → app.stategraph.cloud Website ·…
read the full Terrateam overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is portainer or Terrateam more popular?
portainer has 38,767 GitHub stars and Terrateam has 1,326. portainer has the larger community by that measure.
Are portainer and Terrateam free?
Both are open source. portainer is licensed under Zlib and Terrateam under MPL-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between portainer and Terrateam?
portainer is written in TypeScript and Terrateam in OCaml. 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 Terrateam?
Choose portainer if you want the larger community (38,767 stars) or its Zlib licence terms. Choose Terrateam if its feature set, stack or MPL-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.