Alternatives to Kamal
37signals' zero-downtime Docker deploys
Kamal ranks #10 of 11 in Self-hosted PaaS, with an Alt Score of 42. It is licensed under MIT, free from Free and available on Linux. 9 of 10 checklist rows are verified against a public source.
Developers and small teams who want to deploy containerized web apps to their own servers (bare metal or cloud VMs) instead of a managed PaaS, without adopting Kubernetes-level complexity.
Kamal packages your app as a Docker image and handles the full deploy lifecycle: zero-downtime deploys, rolling restarts, health checks, and remote builds. It also manages accessory services (databases, Redis, etc.) and integrates Traefik as a reverse proxy/load balancer with automatic SSL. Everything is driven by a single YAML config file, and it works with any language or framework, not just Rails.
You list your servers' IPs in a config file, and Kamal uses SSH to run plain Docker commands against them, provisioning Docker on vanilla Ubuntu machines if needed. Deploys are imperative rather than declarative (unlike Kubernetes), so there's no cluster orchestrator or control plane to manage.
Why people leave Kamal
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Ranked alternatives
Ordered by Alt Score. Click any score to see the breakdown.
SwiftWave is an open-source (Apache-2.0), self-hosted PaaS for deploying applications from Git repos, Docker images, or uploaded source to bare metal, Raspberry Pi, or any VPS.
Easypanel is a self-hosted server control panel built on Docker that lets you deploy apps from a Dockerfile, Git repo, or Heroku buildpacks with a web UI.
Kubero is an open-source PaaS that runs natively on Kubernetes, letting developers deploy from Git without writing Helm charts or YAML by hand.
Cloud Foundry is a long-running open-source PaaS (backed by the Linux Foundation's Cloud Foundry Foundation) that gives enterprises a self-hosted 'cf push' deployment workflow with buildpacks, multi-t.
Tsuru is an open-source, extensible PaaS originally built and open-sourced by Globo.com, offering CLI source-code deploys, buildpack-based builds, and a pluggable router/backend architecture on top of.
Feature comparison
Rows come from the Self-hosted PaaS checklist (14 rows). Human-verified cells only. ? means the value has not been verified.
| Self-hosted PaaS checklist | Kamal | SwiftWave | CapRover | Coolify | Dokploy | Easypanel |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | ||||||
| Starts at | ||||||
| License | ||||||
| Platforms | ||||||
| One-click app catalog | ||||||
| Git push deploys | ||||||
| Docker Compose support | ||||||
| Automatic SSL | ||||||
| Backups built in | ||||||
| Multi-server support | ||||||
| Web UI quality | ||||||
| Resource usage | ||||||
| Database provisioning | ||||||
| Zero-downtime deploys |
Every fact and feature listed for Kamal is verified against its own pages. Each alternative is sourced on its own page.
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License MIT verified 2026-07-08
Copyright (c) 2023 David Heinemeier Hansson Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software
https://api.github.com/repos/basecamp/kamal/license -
Pricing model Free verified 2026-07-08
Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software
https://api.github.com/repos/basecamp/kamal/license -
Status active verified 2026-07-08
Active (v2.x).
Kamal uses [kamal-proxy](https://github.com/basecamp/kamal-proxy) to seamlessly switch requests between containers.
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/basecamp/kamal/main/README.md -
Starts at Free verified 2026-07-08
Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software
https://api.github.com/repos/basecamp/kamal/license -
Platforms Linux verified 2026-07-08
Ruby CLI gem; deploys to Linux servers over SSH — no web UI.
From bare metal to cloud VMs, deploy web apps anywhere with zero downtime.
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/basecamp/kamal/main/README.md -
One-click app catalog No verified 2026-07-08
CLI deploy tool; no app catalog.
From bare metal to cloud VMs, deploy web apps anywhere with zero downtime.
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/basecamp/kamal/main/README.md -
Git push deploys No verified 2026-07-08
Deploys triggered via CLI, not git-push webhook.
kamal deploy — Build and deploy your app to all servers.
https://kamal-deploy.org/docs/commands/deploy/ -
Docker Compose support No verified 2026-07-08
Uses its own deploy.yml, not Docker Compose.
Configuration is read from the `config/deploy.yml`.
https://kamal-deploy.org/docs/configuration/overview/ -
Automatic SSL Yes verified 2026-07-08
kamal-proxy provides automatic Let's Encrypt HTTPS with ssl: true.
ssl: true
https://kamal-deploy.org/docs/configuration/proxy/ -
Backups built in No verified 2026-07-08
No built-in backup functionality.
Accessories are managed separately from the main service — they are not updated when you deploy, and they do not have zero-downtime deployments.
https://kamal-deploy.org/docs/configuration/accessories/ -
Multi-server support Yes verified 2026-07-08
For simpler deployments, though, where all servers are identical, you can just specify a list of servers.
https://kamal-deploy.org/docs/configuration/servers/ -
Web UI quality No verified 2026-07-08
CLI-only; configured via deploy.yml, no web dashboard.
Configuration is read from the `config/deploy.yml`.
https://kamal-deploy.org/docs/configuration/overview/ -
Database provisioning Partial verified 2026-07-08
Databases run as manually-configured accessories; no managed provisioning.
Accessories can be booted on a single host, a list of hosts, or on specific roles.
https://kamal-deploy.org/docs/configuration/accessories/ -
Zero-downtime deploys Yes verified 2026-07-08
From bare metal to cloud VMs, deploy web apps anywhere with zero downtime.
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/basecamp/kamal/main/README.md
FAQ
Yes. SwiftWave, CapRover and Easypanel have a free tier or are fully free. Free-tier limits in the comparison table are verified and dated.
SwiftWave, CapRover and Coolify — every license claim links its source.