1Panel vs Pomerium
| Tagline | Modern Linux server and web-app management panel with app store deploys | Identity-aware reverse proxy with OAuth2 SSO for securely exposing internal apps |
| Category | Self-Hosting Platforms & PaaS | Self-Hosting Platforms & PaaS |
| Replaces | Heroku, Render | Heroku, Netlify, Render |
| GitHub stars | 36k | 4.9k |
| Language | Go | Go |
| License | GPL-3.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Self-host difficulty | 2/5 Easy | 4/5 Involved |
| Deploy options | Docker Manual | Docker Docker Compose Kubernetes Manual |
| Managed hosting | ||
| Last updated | today | today |
| 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.
Pomerium
- No application deployment or hosting capabilities; purely an access proxy layer
- Policy configuration via YAML can be complex; lacks a full-featured web UI in the open-source edition
- Device posture checking and some enterprise features require the commercial Pomerium Zero/Enterprise tier
- Setup complexity is significantly higher than simpler tools like Nginx Proxy Manager for basic use cases
Bottom line
Choose 1Panel if you want the lower-effort setup; choose 1Panel for the larger community and ecosystem. Open each guide below for deploy steps and the full feature gap.
Pomerium
Identity-aware reverse proxy with OAuth2 SSO for securely exposing internal apps