Coolify is an open source, self-hostable platform-as-a-service — a Vercel, Heroku, Netlify, and Railway alternative that deploys apps, databases, and services from Git to your own servers over SSH, with automatic SSL and no usage-based bills.

What is Coolify?

Coolify is an open source platform-as-a-service you run on your own servers. Connect any SSH-accessible machine — a VPS, bare metal, a Raspberry Pi, an EC2 instance — and Coolify turns it into a deploy target: push from Git and it builds your app in Docker, provisions a database, and issues SSL, all from a web dashboard.

What is Coolify best for?

Developers and small teams who want a Heroku- or Vercel-style “push and it’s live” workflow without per-app or usage-based pricing, and who are comfortable owning a server. It’s a strong fit for hosting side projects, client sites, internal tools, and databases on cheap VPS hardware you already pay for.

What can Coolify do?

Deploy apps in any language or framework from GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket, or Gitea, plus 280+ one-click services and databases
Manage multiple servers over SSH — no agent to install beyond Docker
Issue and auto-renew Let’s Encrypt SSL certificates
Spin up managed PostgreSQL, MySQL, MariaDB, Redis, and more, with automatic S3-compatible backups
Create preview deployments for pull requests
Send deploy notifications to Discord, Telegram, Slack, and email
Drive everything through an API, a browser-based terminal, and team-based permissions

Where does Coolify fall short?

No edge network or global CDN. Your server serves every request from one location, so a Vercel-style low-latency global frontend needs you to add a CDN yourself.
No built-in observability. There’s no analytics, error tracking, or uptime monitoring — you bolt on separate tools (Sentry, Plausible, an uptime monitor) and manage them yourself.
Multi-server orchestration is limited. Coolify manages several servers, but true clustering and orchestration across them is still maturing, so it’s not yet a Kubernetes replacement for large fleets.

Is Coolify free?

Yes — self-hosting Coolify is free and open source under the Apache-2.0 license, and you only pay for the servers it runs on (a small VPS starts around $4–5/month). Coolify Cloud is an optional managed version at $5/month for the control panel connected to two of your own servers, plus $3/month per additional server; you still bring the servers.

What does Coolify replace?

Coolify is a self-hosted alternative to Vercel, Heroku, Netlify, and Railway. It gives you the same git-push-to-deploy workflow with automatic SSL and managed databases, but the apps run on infrastructure you own, so cost scales with your server bill instead of platform usage.

FAQ

Is Coolify open source? Yes. Coolify is fully open source under the Apache-2.0 license — a genuine OSI-approved license, not a source-available or fair-code one — and the code is on GitHub.

Can I self-host Coolify for free? Yes. The software is free forever to self-host; your only cost is the server it and your apps run on. Coolify Cloud is a paid, managed control panel for people who’d rather not host the dashboard themselves.

Is Coolify a good Vercel or Heroku alternative? For most apps and side projects, yes — you get git-push deploys, SSL, and databases at a flat server cost. The gaps are a global edge network and built-in observability, which the hosted platforms include and you’d add separately.

What do I need to run Coolify? A Linux server you can reach over SSH with Docker installed. One install command sets it up, and the docs recommend a separate server for the resources you deploy so the control panel stays isolated.