Coolify vs Dokploy.
An honest referee.
This is the closest head-to-head on the site. Both are open-source, Docker-based platforms you install on a VPS you already pay for, both put a reverse proxy and Let's Encrypt in front of your apps, and both sell a cheap managed cloud if you'd rather not host the panel. We're a third option, so read with that in mind. This is still the comparison we'd want if we were choosing.
More alike than the threads suggest.
Both install with a single shell command, run your apps and databases as containers, put Traefik and Let's Encrypt in front of them, deploy from a Git push, and take Dockerfiles or auto-detected builds. Both are free to self-host on as many servers as you want, and both offer a managed control plane for a few dollars a month if you'd rather not operate the panel yourself. If you are picking between them for a side project, either one will work, and the honest answer is to install the one whose interface you prefer.
Three axes actually separate them.
Plain Docker vs Docker Swarm
Coolify runs your workloads as ordinary Docker containers on each host. Dokploy builds on Docker Swarm, which is why it can join extra machines to a cluster and spread replicas across them with Traefik balancing in front. That is real multi-node orchestration at a price nobody else charges for it. It also means Swarm's concepts, and Swarm's failure modes, are now yours to learn.
Fully open source vs open core
Coolify is open source end to end. Dokploy is Apache 2.0 for everything outside its proprietary directories, which carry a separate source-available license, and it keeps single sign-on, SCIM, audit logs, custom roles and whitelabeling behind an enterprise license key. For a solo developer that distinction costs nothing. For a company that needs SSO and an audit trail, it is the whole conversation.
Track record vs momentum
Coolify has the longer production history, the bigger template catalog and the larger pool of people who have already hit your problem and written it down. Dokploy is younger, ships quickly, and is further along on clustering and on build servers. Picking between them is partly a bet on which of those two you value when something breaks at 2am.
Our shorthand: one box and a long tail of self-hosted apps points to Coolify; several boxes you want treated as a pool points to Dokploy.
What both of them hand you.
The threads argue about interfaces and templates, and skip the three things the two tools have in common. Each one is a decision you inherit rather than make. Self-hosted, the control plane is a container on hardware you now operate, which means its upgrades, its backups and its restores are yours. Either managed cloud reaches your servers over SSH with a key it holds, so there is an inbound path into every box. And both keep database data in Docker named volumes by default, which is the storage that a stray docker volume prune is able to delete.
| Sproobo | Coolify | Dokploy | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Apps run in Docker | Always | Yes | Yes |
| Backing services in Docker | Always | Yes | Yes |
| Pinned, choosable versions | Apps + DBs | Partial | By image tag |
| Data on inspectable host paths | Yes | Named volumes | Named volumes |
| Agent connectivity | Outbound-only | SSH in | SSH in |
| Inbound ports required | None | SSH port | SSH port |
| Off-box builds | Yes | Optional build server | Optional build server |
| Blue-green + health gate + rollback | Built-in | Partial | Opt-in, Swarm |
| Telemetry stored by vendor | None | None if self-hosted | None if self-hosted |
| AI connectors (claude.ai / ChatGPT) | Built-in | No | No |
| MCP server + coding-agent skill + CLI on one audited API | Yes | MCP + CLI + API | REST API |
| Lock-out possible | No, by design | No if self-hosted | No if self-hosted |
Our bias, stated plainly: we built the first column. Coolify and Dokploy capabilities are described from public documentation and change over time. Spotted something out of date? Tell us and we'll fix it.