Free Alternatives to Heroku, Vercel, Render and Fly: Dokku, CapRover, Coolify, Dokploy

The long title is self-explanatory. For multiple reasons, we would like to have free and open alternatives to paid and closed services like Heroku, Vercel, Render and Fly. Dokku, CapRover, Coolify and Dokploy could be interesting options.

I tested them on both: a Beelink EQR6 Home Server and an Oracle free tier VPS. I found that Dokku and CapRover are simpler and lightweight, making them a better fit to the free tier VPS. Coolify and Dokploy have more features, but they are heavier. With their admin interfaces, they are a good fit for the home server.

Dokku

• https://dokku.com/ (GitHub)

• Simple, lightweight, no admin interface

CapRover

• https://caprover.com/ (GitHub)
• Good features, lightweight, includes an admin interface with templates

Coolify

• https://coolify.io/ (GitHub)

• Lots of features, heavier, includes an admin interface with templates

Dokploy

• https://dokploy.com/ (GitHub)

• Lots of features, heavier, includes an admin interface with templates

Conclusion

I choose CapRover to run on my Oracle free tier VPS and Coolify to run on my Beelink EQR6 Home Server.