Dokploy vs piku
| Tagline | Self-hosted PaaS to deploy apps and databases with Docker and Traefik | 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, Vercel, Netlify, Render | Heroku, Render |
| GitHub stars | 38k | 6.6k |
| Language | TypeScript | Python |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Self-host difficulty | 2/5 Simple | 2/5 Simple |
| Deploy options | Docker Docker Compose Manual | Manual |
| Managed hosting | ||
| Last updated | 5 days ago | 25 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.
Dokploy
- Licensing has proprietary portions (not fully permissive for all uses), unlike a pure OSS PaaS.
- No managed edge CDN or global anycast network; you supply the infrastructure.
- Relies on Docker Swarm, which is less actively developed than Kubernetes for large-scale orchestration.
- Observability and team/RBAC features are thinner than commercial platforms.
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 Dokploy for the larger community and ecosystem. Dokploy has seen more recent development. Open each guide below for deploy steps and the full feature gap.