1Panel vs piku
| Tagline | Modern Linux server and web-app management panel with app store deploys | Nano-PaaS for tiny servers — git push to deploy on a single Pi or VPS |
| Category | Self-Hosting Platforms & PaaS | Self-Hosting Platforms & PaaS |
| Replaces | Heroku, Render | Heroku, Render |
| GitHub stars | 36k | 6.3k |
| Language | Go | Python |
| License | GPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Self-host difficulty | 2/5 Easy | 2/5 Easy |
| Deploy options | Docker Manual | Manual |
| Managed hosting | ||
| Last updated | 5 days ago | 2 months ago |
| 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.
piku
- No Docker support — apps must run as native processes
- No built-in secrets management or environment vault
- No web UI; all management is via SSH and CLI
Bottom line
Both are a similar lift to self-host; 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.