Platform comparison

Choose the operating model that fits your servers

These products overlap, but they are not interchangeable. The useful question is how each one stores deployments, automates changes, and grows beyond one server.

FlatRun

Open source

Teams that want portable Compose deployments, governed automation, and one permissioned view across independent servers.

Operations: Panel, REST API, CLI, CI, assistant, and MCP
Scaling: Policy-driven scaling through Swarm or K3s, with permitted Fleet capacity

Explore FlatRun

Coolify

Teams that want a polished self-hosted application platform with Git-based deployments and managed services.

Operations: Panel, REST API, and official CLI
Scaling: Multi-server deployment; operators provide the external load balancer and make capacity decisions

Read Coolify documentation

Dokploy

Teams that want application and database deployment across a main server, remote servers, or Docker Swarm.

Operations: Panel, API, and official CLI
Scaling: Swarm replicas with Traefik load balancing

Read Dokploy documentation

CapRover

Teams that want a focused Docker PaaS built around simple application deployments.

Operations: Panel, API, and official CLI
Scaling: Swarm replicas with built-in request balancing

Read CapRover documentation

Portainer

Teams that primarily need broad container, stack, Swarm, Kubernetes, and edge environment management.

Operations: Panel and API
Scaling: Uses the scaling facilities of the connected orchestrator

Read Portainer documentation

Where FlatRun differs

Operations remain reviewable and portable

Preview before apply

Inspect affected resources and refuse stale plans before production changes run.

One governed surface

The UI, CLI, CI, assistant, and MCP clients use the same API permissions and resource grants.

Independent servers, one Fleet

Manage permitted peer deployments without requiring every server to share one control database.

Capacity-aware automation

Evaluate container limits and host capacity before adding resources or replicas.

Moving from a hosting panel?

FlatRun uses containers and Compose instead of the shared-hosting account model.

Compare with Plesk Compare with cPanel