1Panel vs Pangolin
| Tagline | Modern Linux server and web-app management panel with app store deploys | Identity-aware tunneled reverse proxy with WireGuard and access control |
| Category | Self-Hosting Platforms & PaaS | Self-Hosting Platforms & PaaS |
| Replaces | Heroku, Render | Heroku, Netlify, Render |
| GitHub stars | 36k | 21k |
| Language | Go | Docker |
| License | GPL-3.0 | AGPL-3.0 |
| Self-host difficulty | 2/5 Easy | 3/5 Moderate |
| Deploy options | Docker Manual | Docker Docker Compose |
| Managed hosting | ||
| Last updated | today | yesterday |
| View repo | View repo |
Where each falls short
The honest trade-offs — what you give up with each, versus the proprietary tools they replace.
1Panel
- More of a server/hosting control panel than a git-push PaaS; no native buildpack or git-deploy pipeline.
- No horizontal autoscaling or clustering across nodes.
- Documentation and community are strongest in Chinese; English resources lag.
- No managed cloud option or edge/CDN.
Pangolin
- Requires a publicly accessible VPS to act as the tunnel endpoint, adding infrastructure overhead
- No managed global edge network; latency depends on your VPS location
- Ecosystem and third-party integrations are much smaller than Cloudflare Tunnel or Tailscale
- Mobile client support and device management are limited compared to Tailscale
Bottom line
Choose 1Panel if you want the lower-effort setup; choose 1Panel for the larger community and ecosystem. 1Panel has seen more recent development. Open each guide below for deploy steps and the full feature gap.