the catalog · ☁️ Hosting

Dokku

★ 30k

Minimal Heroku-like PaaS powered by Docker: git push to deploy on a single VPS with buildpacks

Dokku does the job of Heroku, self-hosted. It is MIT-licensed, so you can do essentially what you like with it, and setting it up is an afternoon, not a weekend. Heroku bills $25-250+ for it. 30k stars on GitHub.

Open-source replacement for Heroku.

Licence
MIT
Self-hosting
Medium
The paid one costs
$25-250+
GitHub stars
30k
view the code →official site →

Is it actually a replacement?

We have written a verdict on what it replaces — what you lose, and why people still pay:

How Dokku runs

Where it runs

Dokku runs on your server.

What setup takes

not verified by us yet — check the repo README.

Dokku questions

Is Dokku open source?

Yes — it is released under MIT.

Can Dokku replace Heroku?

Our verdict on Heroku is YES. Coolify (57k stars), Dokploy (36k stars), Dokku (32k stars) are mature open-source replacements for Heroku — self-host with real ops work and stop paying $7/mo.

Can I self-host Dokku?

Yes — we rate it medium to self-host, and it runs on your server.

More deployment/hosting tools