Home / App Hosting & PaaS / Alternatives to Heroku

3 open source alternatives to Heroku

App hosting platform as a service by Salesforce. Here are the open source projects real teams use instead — ranked by fit, with honest pros and cons for each.

What people don't love about Heroku

  • Free tier removed in 2022.
  • Pricing grew sharply for small projects.
  • Vendor lock-in with buildpacks and add-ons.

Current Heroku pricing (for reference): Eco dynos from $5/month; production tiers from $25.

Ad slot — above comparison

Quick comparison

Alternative Best for License Self-host Hosted cloud?
Dokku
Self-hosted mini-Heroku on a single server. 		Heroku-style git-push deploys on your own single VPS. MIT ★★☆☆☆ Self-host only
Coolify
Open source Vercel/Heroku/Netlify alternative with a UI. 		UI-driven self-hosted PaaS with modern multi-server support. Apache-2.0 ★★☆☆☆ Yes
CapRover
Free, self-hosted PaaS with a clean UI. 		Clean web UI on top of Docker Swarm for solo or small teams. Apache-2.0 ★★☆☆☆ Self-host only

1. Dokku — Heroku-style git-push deploys on your own single VPS.

Self-hosted mini-Heroku on a single server.

Strengths

  • Deploy via git push, just like Heroku.
  • Works on any Linux VPS.
  • Plugin ecosystem for databases, SSL, etc.

Weaknesses

  • Single-host — limited scaling story.
  • Requires Linux sysadmin comfort.
  • UI is CLI-first.
License: MIT Self-host difficulty: 2/5

Dokku homepage · Source on GitHub · Heroku vs Dokku →

2. Coolify — UI-driven self-hosted PaaS with modern multi-server support.

Open source Vercel/Heroku/Netlify alternative with a UI.

Strengths

  • Slick web UI — no CLI required.
  • Multi-server support and one-click deploys for common stacks.
  • Active, fast-moving development.

Weaknesses

  • Rapid updates occasionally break setups.
  • Some quirks on older Linux distributions.
  • Paid cloud is new.
License: Apache-2.0 Self-host difficulty: 2/5 Hosted cloud option

Coolify homepage · Source on GitHub · Heroku vs Coolify →

3. CapRover — Clean web UI on top of Docker Swarm for solo or small teams.

Free, self-hosted PaaS with a clean UI.

Strengths

  • One-command install on any Ubuntu/Debian box.
  • Web UI for managing apps, volumes and domains.
  • Strong one-click app library (databases, etc.).

Weaknesses

  • Docker Swarm under the hood — not Kubernetes.
  • Smaller team behind it.
  • Scaling across many nodes is limited.
License: Apache-2.0 Self-host difficulty: 2/5

CapRover homepage · Source on GitHub · Heroku vs CapRover →

Ad slot — below body

Not what you're looking for?

Browse other tools in App Hosting & PaaS, or check out open source projects by category on the full category index.