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Alternatives · updated September 2026

Self-hosted PaaS, compared honestly

A self-hosted PaaS gives you the Heroku or Railway workflow on servers you own. They differ in how they build apps (native or containers), how they reach servers (agent or SSH), and how much they include (databases, domains, observability).

What to look for

  • Native runtimes or containers only?
  • One server or a fleet, with multi-server deploys?
  • Databases, backups and domains included?
  • Logs, metrics and traces included, or bring your own?

This list is published by the Falak project, so Falak comes first. Every entry is described from its own public materials.

  1. 01

    Falak

    Self-hosted

    Open-source platform you install on your own server. Railway-style canvas, git push deploys for Laravel/PHP, Node, Bun, Deno, static sites, Docker and Compose, databases, domains with automatic HTTPS, and built-in logs, traces and APM.

    Good for: A Railway-style panel with native Laravel/Node runtimes and built-in observability.

    Explore Falak’s features
  2. 02

    Coolify

    Self-hosted

    Open-source, self-hostable PaaS built around Docker, with a large catalog of one-click services and a paid cloud option.

    Good for: Container-first teams that want a mature self-hosted panel.

    Falak vs Coolify
  3. 03

    Dokku

    Self-hosted

    Open-source, single-server “mini Heroku”: git push to a server, built with buildpacks or Dockerfiles, extended by plugins.

    Good for: One server, command-line workflows, Heroku muscle memory.

  4. 04

    CapRover

    Self-hosted

    Open-source PaaS on Docker Swarm with a web panel, one-click apps and automatic HTTPS.

    Good for: Docker Swarm users who want a simple panel.

  5. 05

    Dokploy

    Self-hosted

    Open-source, self-hostable platform for deploying applications and Docker Compose stacks, with database management.

    Good for: Compose-heavy setups that want a lightweight panel.

  6. 06

    Kamal

    Deploy tool

    Open-source deploy tool from 37signals: ships Docker containers to your servers over SSH with zero-downtime switches. No web panel.

    Good for: Teams happy with a config file and a CLI instead of a dashboard.

  7. 07

    Laravel Forge

    Hosted panel

    Laravel’s hosted service for provisioning and managing PHP servers on your own cloud accounts.

    Good for: Laravel teams that want an official, managed control panel.

    Falak vs Laravel Forge

FAQ

Questions

Something missing? Ask on GitHub.

What is a self-hosted PaaS?

A platform-as-a-service you install on your own infrastructure. It turns servers you rent or own into a place where you deploy from git, attach databases and domains, and watch logs, without a vendor running your apps.

Which open-source PaaS is best for Laravel?

Falak was built with Laravel in mind: native FrankenPHP or PHP-FPM, Octane, Horizon, queue workers, a scheduler with missed-run detection, leader-only migrations and a Nightwatch-style APM package.

Related

Last reviewed September 2026. Competitor details come from their public websites and documentation and may have changed since; we leave out anything we could not confirm. All product names are trademarks of their owners; Falak is not affiliated with them. Spotted a mistake?Open an issue and we will fix it.

Your servers are waiting.

One command installs Falak on a fresh Ubuntu or Debian host. Connect servers, push code, watch it go live.

curl -fsSL https://falak.sh/install.sh | sudo bash -s -- --domain falak.example.com --email you@example.com
Read the install guide Star on GitHub