CasaOS vs Sandstorm
| Tagline | Simple, elegant home cloud OS for personal servers and NAS devices | Personal server platform for running self-hosted web apps with strong sandboxing |
| Category | Self-Hosting Platforms & PaaS | Self-Hosting Platforms & PaaS |
| Replaces | Heroku, Render, Netlify | Heroku, Render, Netlify |
| GitHub stars | 37k | 7.1k |
| Language | Go | C++ |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Self-host difficulty | 2/5 Easy | 4/5 Involved |
| Deploy options | Docker Manual | Manual |
| Managed hosting | ||
| Last updated | 0 years ago | 1 month 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.
CasaOS
- No built-in CI/CD pipelines or Git-based deploy workflows like Heroku/Render
- App store limited to curated Docker images; no support for custom buildpacks
- No auto-scaling, horizontal scaling, or load balancing across multiple hosts
- SSL/TLS certificate management is basic compared to managed PaaS offerings
Sandstorm
- App ecosystem is very small; most popular self-hosted apps are not packaged for Sandstorm
- Project has limited active development; community and update cadence have slowed significantly
- No Docker support; apps must be specially packaged in Sandstorm's proprietary SPK format
- No horizontal scaling, load balancing, or modern cloud-native deployment patterns
Bottom line
Choose CasaOS if you want the lower-effort setup; choose CasaOS for the larger community and ecosystem. Sandstorm has seen more recent development. Open each guide below for deploy steps and the full feature gap.
Sandstorm
Personal server platform for running self-hosted web apps with strong sandboxing