Dokku vs Netlify
Dokku and Netlify are both paas and app hosting software. Dokku is open source under MIT, with 32k GitHub stars. Netlify is a commercial product from Netlify.
Which to pick
- Pick Dokku when
- You want Heroku-like git push deployments on your own cheap VPS for small apps.
- Pick Netlify when
- You run static or framework-built sites and want simple deploys with built-in forms and previews.
Side by side
A Heroku-style PaaS on a single server: git push an app and Dokku builds it with buildpacks or a Dockerfile and runs it in containers, with plugins for databases and TLS.
Hosts static and JAMstack sites with git deploys, preview builds, serverless functions, forms and identity.
Designed mainly for one host, so high availability and multi-server scaling need extra work.
Usage-based charges for bandwidth and builds can surprise you on traffic spikes.
Production-ready (both)
Self-hosted server and command line
Cloud service
Shell, Go and Docker
Not published
Open source, MIT (permissive)
Closed source, sold by Netlify
You can build it into a product you sell, as long as you keep its copyright notice.
Closed source: you use it under the maker's terms and cannot change or resell the code.
32k GitHub stars
2.9k Wikipedia readers a month on phones
Established: started 13 years ago, latest release v0.38.34.
Not known
Other comparisons
More PaaS and app hosting platforms
Both sides were judged on 2026-11-03 from makers' descriptions, Wikipedia, READMEs and GitHub data. License, age and popularity lines are worked out directly.