If you want Heroku- or Vercel-style deploys on your own server, four names come up again and again: Coolify, CapRover, Dokploy and ShipOwn. They solve the same problem, getting your app from a repo to a live URL on hardware you control, but they make very different design choices.
Full disclosure: I built ShipOwn. I'll stick to architecture and documented behaviour, and say plainly where the other tools are the better pick. Feature lists change fast, so check each project's docs before deciding.
The one difference that matters most
Coolify, CapRover and Dokploy are platforms you install on the server. A web dashboard and its supporting services run on your VPS, and your apps are deployed as Docker containers.
ShipOwn is a desktop app. It runs on your Windows, macOS or Linux computer and connects to the server over plain SSH. No ShipOwn deployment agent is installed on the server. The server stays a normal Linux box running PM2, Nginx and, only if you want it, Docker.
Almost every other difference follows from this.
Side-by-side
| Coolify | CapRover | Dokploy | ShipOwn | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Where it runs | On your server | On your server | On your server | On your computer |
| Interface | Web dashboard | Web dashboard + CLI | Web dashboard | Desktop app |
| Apps run as | Docker containers | Docker containers (Swarm) | Docker containers | PM2 (Node), Nginx (static) or Docker |
| Docker required | Yes | Yes | Yes | No (optional) |
| Source code | Open source | Open source | Open source | Commercial, closed source |
| Auto-deploy on push | Yes (webhooks) | Yes (webhooks) | Yes (webhooks) | No, manual deploy with "commits waiting" indicator |
| Team access via browser | Yes | Yes | Yes | No, per-device desktop licence |
Coolify
Coolify is a popular open-source, self-hostable PaaS. Install it on a server and you get a web dashboard to deploy apps from Git, run databases and services, and manage multiple servers.
Choose Coolify if: you want a browser dashboard your whole team can use, you're happy with everything in Docker, and you like the open-source model and community.
Consider: the platform itself uses CPU, memory and disk on your server, and it's another piece of software on the server you need to keep updated.
CapRover
CapRover is one of the older open-source options. It runs on Docker Swarm, offers a web UI and CLI, and has a catalogue of one-click apps.
Choose CapRover if: you want something battle-tested, simple captain-definition deploys, or a multi-node Swarm cluster.
Consider: everything is containerised, and Swarm adds concepts you may not need on a single small VPS.
Dokploy
Dokploy is a newer open-source platform with a modern UI, strong Docker and Docker Compose support, and database management.
Choose Dokploy if: you live in Compose files and want a clean, modern dashboard on the server.
Consider: like Coolify, it's a control plane running next to your apps.
ShipOwn
ShipOwn brings the platform workflow to your desktop:
- Connect a server over SSH (tested before it's saved).
- Pick a source: a GitHub repo and branch, or a local folder.
- Review the plan: framework, commands, port, domain and target, all editable.
- Watch it build on the server, or on your PC with the verified output uploaded.
- Operate it: live URL, deployed commit, health, logs, redeploy, rollback.
It deploys three kinds of apps:
- Node apps under PM2: Next.js, Nuxt, Remix, SvelteKit, NestJS, Fastify, Express.
- Static sites on Nginx: Vite (React/Vue), Astro, plain HTML.
- Docker apps from a Dockerfile or Compose file, with commit-labelled images and the previous container kept until the health check passes.
Other documented features: Nginx virtual hosts tested before reload and restored if rejected, Certbot HTTPS with expiry shown, a release directory per deploy with automatic restore on failure, server vitals read from /proc and pm2 jlist, an embedded terminal, file browser, fail2ban setup, management of existing containers, and an AI terminal that uses your own Anthropic, OpenAI or DeepSeek key and proposes one command at a time for your approval.
Choose ShipOwn if: you want nothing extra running on the server, you deploy Node apps without Docker, you build on your own machine to spare a small VPS, or you want approval-gated AI help for server problems.
Consider: there's no auto-deploy on push, no browser dashboard for a team, and it's a commercial product, not open source. It uses a hosted licence service and update service, so it isn't fully offline.
Decision guide
- "My team needs a shared web dashboard." → Coolify or Dokploy.
- "I want everything containerised, maybe across nodes." → CapRover or Dokploy.
- "I need auto-deploy on every push." → Coolify, CapRover or Dokploy.
- "I want my server to run only my apps, no platform." → ShipOwn.
- "My Next.js app runs fine on PM2; I don't want Docker." → ShipOwn.
- "I want open source." → Coolify, CapRover or Dokploy.
Can you combine them?
Partly. ShipOwn can inspect and manage Docker containers that are already on a server, but running two deployment systems against the same apps will cause confusion. Pick one owner per app.
FAQ
Which one is the "best"? None in general. The architecture question (dashboard on the server vs app on your desktop) usually decides it.
Which is lightest on the server? ShipOwn adds no platform process to the server; the others run their dashboard and services there.
Can I try ShipOwn without paying? Yes, a free 30-day trial with no card. Check the supported environments first.
Conclusion
Coolify, CapRover and Dokploy are excellent open-source platforms if you want a dashboard and containers on the server. ShipOwn is for developers who'd rather keep the server plain and drive deploys from their own machine. Try the one whose architecture fits how you work, and if that's the desktop approach, start with ShipOwn.
Written by Vishvajeet Shukla, full stack developer and creator of ShipOwn.
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