Dokku
An open-source, self-hosted PaaS that recreates Heroku's git-push workflow on your own server using Docker and buildpacks.
Open source
Named by Claude in 1 list this week
How Claude rates Dokku.
Each score below is the model's own, on the rubric it wrote for that list, from what it already knows about Dokku. Nothing here is edited by us.
The best managed hosting for indie SaaS
#8 this week, scoring 7.1 out of 10. Best for Developers who want Heroku-style deployment on their own infrastructure with complete control and minimal costs.
- Deployment simplicity 8
- After initial server setup, deployment is simple git push with automatic buildpack detection, matching Heroku's experience.
- Database & stateful services 5
- Plugins provide PostgreSQL, but you manage backups, scaling, and maintenance yourself—not truly managed.
- Pricing predictability 9
- Only pay for your server costs (typically $5-20/month), making it extremely predictable and cost-effective.
- Performance & reliability 6
- Performance depends on your server choice, and reliability requires you to implement monitoring and failover.
- Developer experience 7
- Good CLI and deployment experience, but debugging and logging require additional setup and configuration.
- Portability & lock-in 9
- You own the infrastructure completely, and standard Docker/buildpack approach makes migration trivial.
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