Coolify

Coolify is an open-source, self-hostable alternative to Heroku, Vercel, and Netlify that puts you in full control of your deployment infrastructure. With a single SSH connection to any VPS, bare-metal server, or Raspberry Pi, you can deploy static sites, full-stack applications, databases, and over 280 one-click services through a clean web interface — no cloud vendor required.

Unlike traditional PaaS platforms, Coolify stores all configuration directly on your servers using Docker and Docker Compose. If you ever stop using Coolify, your running resources remain intact and manageable. Git push-to-deploy integrations with GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket, and Gitea trigger automatic builds, while pull request preview environments spin up isolated test deployments for every PR.

Built on Laravel 11 and PHP 8.4 with Livewire for reactive UI, Coolify ships with automated SSL via Let’s Encrypt, S3-compatible database backups, real-time server monitoring via Sentinel, and a comprehensive REST API. A browser-based terminal, webhook integrations, team collaboration with role-based access, and built-in MCP server support for AI agent workflows round out the feature set.

Coolify is fully open-source under Apache 2.0 with no features behind a paywall. A managed cloud version is available at app.coolify.io for teams that want the same capability without the operational overhead of running their own Coolify instance.

What You Get

• Git Push-to-Deploy - Connect GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket, or Gitea repositories and trigger automated builds and deployments on every push, with configurable branch rules and build pack detection (Nixpacks, Railpack, Dockerfile, or static).
• 280+ One-Click Services - Deploy pre-configured templates for databases (PostgreSQL, MySQL, MariaDB, Redis, MongoDB), productivity tools, monitoring stacks, and full applications with a single click — each backed by curated Docker Compose definitions.
• Pull Request Preview Environments - Automatically create isolated, containerized environments for every pull request, post the preview URL as a PR comment, and clean up the container when the PR closes.
• Automatic SSL Certificates - Coolify provisions and renews Let’s Encrypt TLS certificates for all custom domains through Traefik reverse proxy integration, with no manual configuration required.
• Automated Database Backups - Schedule recurring backups of any managed database to any S3-compatible storage (AWS S3, MinIO, Backblaze B2, Cloudflare R2) with one-click restore from the dashboard.
• Real-Time Server Monitoring - Built-in Sentinel agent monitors CPU, memory, and disk on every connected server, broadcasting live metrics to the dashboard and triggering alerts through configurable notification channels.
• Browser-Based Terminal - Open a live shell session directly on any connected server from the web UI, without needing an SSH client or storing private keys locally.
• Comprehensive REST API - A documented OpenAPI 3.0 REST API exposes every deployment, server, service, and database operation for integration with CI/CD pipelines, custom tooling, or AI agents via the built-in MCP server.
• Multi-Server Management - Manage multiple servers from a single Coolify dashboard, routing different applications and databases to different hosts with isolated Docker networks and cross-server backup rules.
• Team Collaboration - Invite team members with role-based permissions, share projects and servers across teams, and enforce per-resource access controls for shared infrastructure.
• No Vendor Lock-in - All application configurations, Docker Compose files, and service definitions are stored on your server, so resources keep running and remain manageable even without Coolify.
• MCP Server Integration - Built-in Model Context Protocol server exposes Coolify’s infrastructure as AI-callable tools, letting LLM agents deploy applications, query server status, and manage services programmatically.

Common Use Cases

• Indie developer running multiple side projects - A solo developer deploys five Next.js apps, a Ghost blog, and a PostgreSQL database on a single /month VPS, managing all of them through Coolify’s dashboard with automatic SSL and GitHub deploy hooks.
• Startup replacing cloud PaaS costs - A small startup migrates from Heroku to a Hetzner dedicated server, using Coolify to replicate their Heroku pipeline — Git deployments, managed Postgres, Redis, and review app environments — at a fraction of the monthly cost.
• DevOps team self-hosting internal tooling - A platform team uses Coolify to spin up and maintain internal services like Grafana, Uptime Kuma, Plausible Analytics, and n8n workflows on private infrastructure, with team accounts and role-based access for different service owners.
• Agency managing client deployments - A web agency runs separate projects and environments for each client on shared infrastructure, using Coolify’s multi-team support and isolated Docker networks to keep client data separated while managing everything from one admin dashboard.
• AI-assisted infrastructure management - An engineering team connects Coolify’s MCP server to their AI coding agent, enabling the agent to deploy new services, check deployment status, and roll back applications through natural language commands without direct server access.

Under The Hood

Architecture Coolify is structured as a domain-driven Laravel monolith with strong separation of concerns. Business logic is encapsulated in actionable classes using the Lorisleiva AsAction trait, keeping controllers and Livewire components thin orchestrators rather than business logic containers. Deployment workflows run as encrypted, serialized queue jobs dispatched through Laravel Horizon, with priority queues separating critical operations like cleanup from routine build tasks. Events drive cross-component communication — deployment status changes broadcast over WebSockets to update UI and notification channels simultaneously. Service templates are defined declaratively as Docker Compose YAML stored in a templates directory, with a dedicated parser mapping template variables to runtime configuration. The result is a system where adding a new service template requires no PHP changes, and where the core deployment pipeline is isolated from the UI layer.

Tech Stack Coolify runs on PHP 8.4 and Laravel 11 for the backend, with Livewire 3 and Alpine.js driving the reactive frontend inside Blade templates — no JavaScript framework build step required for most UI. Tailwind CSS handles styling. PostgreSQL 15 serves as the primary data store and Redis 7 provides caching, queue brokering, and real-time pub/sub. WebSocket connections use Soketi, a self-hosted Pusher-compatible server, integrated with Laravel Echo on the client. Traefik acts as the reverse proxy and handles TLS termination. Application builds use Nixpacks or Railpack for automatic build plan detection, or raw Dockerfiles and Docker Compose for explicit configuration. Laravel Horizon manages queue workers, Laravel Pail streams logs, and Pest with Laravel Dusk covers automated testing.

Code Quality The codebase maintains extensive automated test coverage across unit, feature, and browser-level end-to-end tests using Pest and Laravel Dusk, with over 400 test files exercising deployment logic, API contracts, security boundaries, and UI flows. Security handling is explicit: shell commands are sanitized through input validation traits, environment variables with sensitive values use encrypted casts, and API tokens carry fine-grained permission scopes enforced in middleware. Laravel Pint enforces code style and Rector handles automated refactoring. The GitHub Actions CI pipeline runs the test suite on every pull request. Error handling in the deployment job is comprehensive, with typed exceptions propagating through the queue system and surfacing as structured notification payloads rather than being swallowed silently.

What Makes It Unique Coolify’s most distinctive technical contribution is its built-in MCP (Model Context Protocol) server — exposing the entire infrastructure API as AI-callable tools so LLM agents can deploy applications, inspect server health, and manage services through natural language without custom integration work. The PR preview environment system is also unusually complete: it creates isolated Docker containers per PR, posts the preview URL to the pull request comment, and handles cleanup on PR close through GitHub/GitLab webhook events, all without requiring external CI/CD tooling. The template system for 280+ services is declarative and community-contributed, meaning new services ship as YAML additions with no PHP backend changes. The combination of zero-vendor-lock-in architecture (all config lives on your server in standard Docker Compose format), multi-server SSH management from a single control plane, and native AI agent integration puts Coolify in a distinct position among self-hosted PaaS tools.

Self-Hosting

Coolify is licensed under the Apache License 2.0, one of the most permissive open-source licenses available. You can use it commercially, modify it freely, distribute your own versions, and integrate it into proprietary workflows without any copyleft obligations. The only requirements are retaining the original license notice and attributing the original authors. There are no feature tiers, no license key checks, and no paywalled capabilities — the self-hosted version includes everything the cloud version runs on.

Running Coolify in production requires at minimum a server with at least 2 vCPUs and 2 GB of RAM for Coolify itself, plus additional servers for the workloads you deploy (the recommended architecture separates the Coolify control plane from application servers). You are responsible for keeping the underlying OS patched, managing SSH key security, monitoring disk space on all connected servers, and handling disaster recovery for the Coolify database (PostgreSQL) and Redis instance. Coolify provides a built-in update mechanism through the dashboard, but testing updates before applying them to production is your responsibility. The S3 backup feature covers your managed databases but not the Coolify application state itself.

The managed cloud version at app.coolify.io removes the operational burden of running the Coolify control plane. Subscribers get high-availability infrastructure, managed upgrades, email notification support, and priority support — at roughly the same monthly cost as running a small VPS yourself. The cloud version does not add locked features; it simply offloads the maintenance. For most solo developers or small teams, the self-hosted path is viable with moderate Linux administration skills, while larger teams or those without DevOps capacity may find the cloud subscription a better value despite the otherwise equivalent feature set.