A Coolify Alternative That Installs Nothing on Your Server

Coolify and Shipown both deploy your apps to servers you control, but they sit in different places. Coolify is an open-source, self-hostable platform: a web panel runs on a Linux server and deploys apps to the servers you connect to it as Docker containers. Shipown is a desktop app for Windows and Linux that connects to your servers over SSH, installs no agent, and runs Node apps directly under PM2 and static sites straight from Nginx, with Dockerfile and Compose deploys supported as well.

Coolify suits teams that want a full platform with a browser dashboard, git-driven deploys and one-click services. Shipown suits developers who want to keep the server plain and drive deploys from their own computer. The facts about Coolify below were checked against its own site and documentation in October 2026.

What is Coolify?

Coolify describes itself as an open-source, self-hostable alternative to Vercel, Heroku, Netlify and Railway. You install it on a Linux server (amd64 or arm64), where Coolify itself runs as Docker containers, including its own PostgreSQL and Redis. Its installation guide asks for at least 2 CPU cores, 2 GB of RAM and 10 GB of disk on the machine that hosts the panel (Coolify installation). If you would rather not host the panel yourself, Coolify Cloud is a hosted panel that connects to servers you own.

Once the panel is running, you add servers to it. For each one, Coolify's "Validate Server & Install Docker Engine" step installs Docker Engine and Compose (Coolify: adding a server), and the server runs a coolify-proxy container, which is Traefik by default, with Caddy or no proxy as options. New servers also run the Sentinel agent as a coolify-sentinel container; it is on by default and can be disabled. Applications, Node apps included, are built with Nixpacks, Railpack, a Dockerfile or a Compose file and run as containers.

Around that core sits a broad feature set: Git integration with GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket and Gitea; pull-request preview deployments; more than 280 one-click services; one-click databases; S3 backups; teams with roles, 2FA and SSO; free Let's Encrypt certificates; webhooks; scheduled tasks; monitoring; notifications; Cloudflare Tunnels; and instant rollbacks. You drive it from a web dashboard, a REST API, or an official CLI for Linux, macOS and Windows. Its AI integration is through an MCP server, which lets assistants such as Claude or Cursor list resources, deploy, read logs, restart services and troubleshoot failed deployments. Coolify is licensed under Apache-2.0.

Why developers look for a Coolify alternative

For many teams, Coolify's breadth is exactly why they chose it. The reasons people look elsewhere are mostly about what that breadth puts on their servers, and about how they prefer to run Node apps.

Docker, a proxy container and an agent on every server

Every server connected to Coolify gets Docker Engine and Compose, the coolify-proxy container and, unless you turn it off, the coolify-sentinel agent container. If your current setup is a Node app under PM2 behind Nginx, adopting Coolify means moving that app into a container and routing its traffic through Coolify's proxy. For a stack that is already containerized, that is a small step. For a single VPS running one or two Node apps, it can be more change than the project needs.

The panel needs a server of its own, or a share of one

Self-hosted Coolify asks for at least 2 CPU cores, 2 GB of RAM and 10 GB of disk, and runs its own PostgreSQL and Redis. Either the panel shares a machine with your apps and draws on the same resources, or you pay for another server to host it. Like any web application, it is also something you keep running, updated and reachable, separately from the apps it deploys.

Every Node app becomes a container

Coolify builds Node apps into containers with Nixpacks, Railpack, a Dockerfile or Compose. That gives you one consistent model for every language, and it also puts an image build, a container runtime and a proxy between your code and the internet. Developers who already know PM2, with its process list, its logs and its restart behavior, give that up when everything runs in a container.

Coolify Cloud moves the panel, not the servers

Coolify Cloud takes the panel off your hands for $5 a month including 2 servers, plus $3 a month for each additional server, as of October 2026 (Coolify pricing). Your apps still run on servers you own and pay for. The hosted plan changes where the dashboard lives, and its fee grows with the number of servers you connect.

How Shipown works differently

Shipown keeps the parts of a platform that matter day to day (pick a source, build, get a live URL with HTTPS, roll back) and moves the control plane to your desktop.

Nothing of Shipown is installed on the server

Shipown runs on your Windows or Linux computer and reaches each server over plain SSH. There is no panel to host, no database for the tool, and no agent: server readings come from /proc over SSH, and Docker events stream over the same connection. When a server is missing something, Shipown reports it and offers to install it (PM2, Docker, or Nginx with Certbot), and a Docker-only server can have domains and HTTPS without Node.js or PM2. The first connection guide walks through it, and servers and monitoring covers what is read and how often.

PM2 for Node, Nginx for static sites, containers when you choose them

Node apps (Next.js, Nuxt, Remix, SvelteKit, NestJS, Fastify and plain Express) are installed, built and started under PM2, with the port, the health check and the restart policy set for you. Static sites built with Vite (React or Vue), Astro or plain HTML are published to a release directory and served straight from Nginx, with no process to keep alive. Anything with a Dockerfile or a Compose file is deployed as containers behind Nginx, which is also the route for Python, Go, Rust, PHP, Ruby, Java and .NET. Only that last path needs Docker on the server. If PM2 is new to you, what PM2 is explains it.

Releases that go live only after a health check

Each deploy lands in its own release directory, and the live pointer moves only after the build and the health check pass. A failed deploy restores the previous release by itself, and rolling back later is picking an earlier release from a list. For containers, the previous container is kept until the new one passes its health check, images are labelled with the commit they came from, and retained images support rollback.

A person presses deploy, and the log is real

Shipown does not deploy on git push. It reads the commit each app is actually running on the server, compares it with the branch on GitHub, and shows how many commits are waiting; a person then presses deploy. You choose to build on the server or on your PC. PC builds are checksum-verified and never rebuilt on the server; static builds use your local build tools, while Node and Docker builds use Linux Docker on your PC to match the server's architecture. Either way, what streams in the window is the real install and build output, not a progress animation.

An AI terminal that asks before it runs anything

Where Coolify's AI integration is an MCP server for outside assistants, Shipown builds an AI terminal into the app. With your own Anthropic, OpenAI or DeepSeek API key, you describe a problem, such as a 502 from Nginx, a crashed PM2 process or a full disk, and the model proposes one shell command at a time with its reason. You approve each command, and destructive ones such as recursive deletes, reboots, firewall flushes or stopping SSH are always held for confirmation. Requests go from your computer straight to the provider you picked.

Server upkeep in the same window

Shipown also handles the work around the apps: reading and editing cron jobs, ufw or firewalld rules that always allow your live SSH port first, swap files, pm2-logrotate, fail2ban, deploy users with scoped sudo rules, a file manager, and database backups for the MySQL, MariaDB, PostgreSQL and MongoDB engines it finds installed on the server.

Coolify vs Shipown: feature comparison

Pricing compared

Prices are as of October 2026. Both tools deploy to servers you rent or own, so the cost of those servers comes on top of either.

Coolify's figures come from Coolify pricing. Shipown is a free trial, then a paid licence for a fixed period that does not renew by itself; current prices are on the pricing page. If your requirement is free and open source, self-hosted Coolify meets it and Shipown does not.

When Coolify is the better choice

• You want every push to a branch, or a webhook, to deploy without anyone pressing a button.
• Your review process relies on pull-request preview deployments.
• You want databases and services created for you: one-click PostgreSQL, MySQL, MariaDB, MongoDB, Redis, KeyDB, Dragonfly or ClickHouse, and more than 280 one-click services.
• Several people need access from a browser, with team roles, 2FA and SSO.
• You automate deploys through a REST API or a CLI.
• You need the tool itself to be open source, or free to self-host with every feature.
• Someone on the team uses a Mac: Coolify's dashboard runs in a browser and its CLI supports macOS, while Shipown has no macOS app yet.
• You want monitoring and notifications that come from a server rather than a desktop app; Shipown's checks need the app running and the PC awake.
• Everything you run is already containerized, and you want S3 backups or Cloudflare Tunnels managed from the same place.

When Shipown is the better choice

• You want nothing of the deployment tool on the server: no panel, no proxy container, no agent.
• Your apps are Node apps or static sites and you want them under PM2 and Nginx, with Docker only for the apps that need it.
• Your servers are small and you would rather not set aside 2 GB of RAM for a panel.
• You want deploys to be deliberate: you see how many commits are waiting, press deploy, and the release goes live only after a health check, with automatic restore if it fails.
• You want an AI terminal on your own Anthropic, OpenAI or DeepSeek key that proposes one command at a time for approval.
• You also look after the servers themselves (firewall rules, fail2ban, cron, swap, deploy users and database backups) and want that in the same app.
• You want credentials kept on your machine: SSH keys, passwords and environment values are never uploaded for licensing or telemetry.

Moving from Coolify to Shipown

The safest migration runs both setups side by side for a short while and moves traffic with DNS, so the old stack stays available until the new one has proved itself. The guides to deploying a Node.js app and a Docker Compose app cover the server side in more detail.

1. Write down each app. Repository and branch, install, build and start commands, the port it listens on, every environment variable, every domain, any volume that holds data, and the databases it uses.
2. Choose how each app will run. A Node app can move to PM2, a static site to Nginx, and anything that depends on its Dockerfile or Compose file can keep it.
3. Use a fresh server if you can. A new server leaves the Coolify stack untouched as a fallback and avoids running Coolify's proxy and Nginx on the same machine.
4. Move the data. Dump each database from its container and restore it into an engine installed on the new server, using the commands below.
5. Connect the server in Shipown. Add the host, port, user and key; the connection is tested before anything is saved. Let setup install what is missing: PM2, Docker, or Nginx with Certbot.
6. Deploy and check. Pick the repository and branch or a local folder, correct the detected plan, add the environment variables, deploy and read the build log. The release goes live only after its health check passes.
7. Point DNS. Lower the record's TTL a day ahead, then point each domain's A or AAAA record at the new server. Request HTTPS once the domain resolves there, because Certbot has to reach the new server to issue the certificate.
8. Retire the old stack last. Keep Coolify running until traffic, logs, scheduled jobs and backups are confirmed on the new server, schedule Shipown's daily database backups, and only then shut the old stack down.

The standard dump and restore tools are enough for step 4. On MariaDB 11 and later, use mariadb-dump in place of mysqldump.

# On the old server: dump each database from its container
docker exec <postgres-container> pg_dump -U <user> -Fc <database> > app.dump
docker exec <mysql-container> mysqldump -u root -p<password> --single-transaction <database> > app.sql
docker exec <mongo-container> mongodump --archive --db=<database> > app.archive

# On the new server, after installing the same engine
sudo -u postgres createdb -O <user> <database>
sudo -u postgres pg_restore --no-owner --role=<user> -d <database> < app.dump
mysql -u root -p -e "CREATE DATABASE <database>"
mysql -u root -p <database> < app.sql
mongorestore --archive < app.archive