Caddy vs Qovery Engine
| Tagline | Automatic HTTPS web server and reverse proxy with zero config TLS | Open-source engine to deploy apps on your own cloud like a managed PaaS |
| Category | Self-Hosting Platforms & PaaS | Self-Hosting Platforms & PaaS |
| Replaces | Heroku, Netlify, Render | Heroku, Render |
| GitHub stars | 74k | 2.5k |
| Language | Go | Rust |
| License | Apache-2.0 | GPL-3.0 |
| Self-host difficulty | 3/5 Moderate | 5/5 Advanced |
| Deploy options | Docker Docker Compose Manual | Kubernetes Manual |
| Managed hosting | ||
| Last updated | 4 days ago | 5 days 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.
Caddy
- Not a full PaaS; no git push deploy, build pipelines, or app lifecycle management
- No built-in CI/CD integration; needs to be combined with other tools for deployments
- Dashboard and metrics require third-party tools (Prometheus, Grafana) — none built-in
- No managed database provisioning or environment variable secrets management
Qovery Engine
- It is the engine/library, not a turnkey product; the full UX is tied to Qovery's (paid) control plane.
- Designed to provision cloud infrastructure, so it expects an AWS/GCP/Azure/Scaleway account rather than a single box.
- Standalone self-hosting without the Qovery platform is poorly documented.
- Smaller community and narrower scope than full PaaS dashboards.
Bottom line
Choose Caddy if you want the lower-effort setup; choose Caddy for the larger community and ecosystem. Caddy has seen more recent development. Open each guide below for deploy steps and the full feature gap.
Qovery Engine
Open-source engine to deploy apps on your own cloud like a managed PaaS