Alternatives to Tsuru
Open-source extensible PaaS for deploying apps in any language to your own servers
Tsuru ranks #9 of 11 in Self-hosted PaaS, with an Alt Score of 46. It is licensed under BSD-3-Clause, free from Free and available on Linux, macOS and Windows. 8 of 10 checklist rows are verified against a public source.
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 Docker and Kubernetes. It is used in production by companies like Globo, Jumia, and Stone for internal developer platforms.
Platform/infrastructure teams who want to run their own self-hosted, Heroku-like PaaS on top of Kubernetes, and the application developers inside those organizations who just want to push code and get a running app without managing servers or writing Kubernetes manifests themselves.
A CLI-driven PaaS that deploys apps onto one or more Kubernetes clusters using a curated set of language platforms (Go, Python, Java, Node.js, PHP, Ruby, or a static/Dockerfile build), plus app quotas, automated SSL/TLS certificate issuance, multi-cluster/multi-cloud placement via pools, and provisioned add-on services (databases, caches, proxies) that bind directly to an app's environment variables.
A central Tsuru API server (backed by MongoDB) receives commands from the tsuru CLI (or Terraform), builds container images via BuildKit and a Deploy Agent, pushes them to a container registry, and schedules the resulting app units onto a target Kubernetes cluster; a separate Router API component wires up networking/routing for each app once its units pass health checks.
Why people leave Tsuru
Dashed reasons are sourced facts; the rest are opinions. Vendors can dispute.
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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.
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 | Tsuru | 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 Tsuru is verified against its own pages. Each alternative is sourced on its own page.
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License BSD-3-Clause verified 2026-07-30
GitHub's license detector also classifies this as 'BSD 3-Clause New or Revised License'; docs.tsuru.io/getting_started/overview/ separately states the project is released under the '3rd-Clause BSD lic
Copyright (c) 2015, tsuru authors. All rights reserved. Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met:
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/tsuru/tsuru/main/LICENSE -
Pricing model Free verified 2026-07-30
Self-hosted OSS PaaS software with no hosted/commercial tier. tsuru.io's own sitemap.xml lists only the homepage and /media/ — no pricing page exists.
Tsuru projects are open-source software released under the 3rd-Clause BSD license. Furthermore, all external components/dependencies also are maintained by the open-source community (each one released
https://docs.tsuru.io/getting_started/overview/ -
Starts at Free verified 2026-07-30
No paid tier found; you self-host it on your own infrastructure/Kubernetes cluster at no license cost.
Tsuru projects are open-source software released under the 3rd-Clause BSD license.
https://docs.tsuru.io/getting_started/overview/ -
Platforms Linux, macOS, Windows verified 2026-07-30
Refers to the tsuru CLI client's supported OSes (also distributed via Docker container image). The Tsuru server/API itself is deployed as containers on a Kubernetes cluster, not installed on end-user
Pre-built binaries. Linux ... MacOS ... Windows. If you are using Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL), you can install Tsuru by following the same steps as would for Linux. However, if you are not using
https://docs.tsuru.io/user_guides/install_client/ -
Status active verified 2026-07-30
LOUD FLAG FOR REVIEWER: despite tsuru's Globo.com origins and long history, the core tsuru/tsuru repo is NOT dormant — most recent commit to main landed 2026-07-29 (one day before this research), and
Recent Commits to tsuru:main ... Feature/service fine grained permissions (#2878) ... <updated>2026-07-29T13:57:36Z</updated>
https://github.com/tsuru/tsuru/commits/main.atom -
One-click app catalog No verified 2026-07-30
Tsuru's catalog (Go, Python, Java, NodeJS, PHP, Ruby, Static) is a set of language/framework runtimes you deploy your own code onto, not a one-click catalog of pre-built applications (e.g. WordPress,
A platform is a well defined pack with installed dependencies for a language or framework that a group of applications will need.
https://docs.tsuru.io/admin_guides/managing_platforms/ -
Git push deploys No verified 2026-07-30
Current documented deploy methods are CLI file upload (tsuru app deploy), container image, or Dockerfile build — no git-remote-push deploy mechanism appears anywhere in current docs, FAQ, or the app-d
Deploy the source code and/or configurations to the application on Tsuru. ... To deploy using app's platform build process (just sending source code and/or configurations): Uploading all files within
https://docs.tsuru.io/tsuru_client/tsuru_app_deploy/ -
Docker Compose support No verified 2026-07-30
The only official docker-compose usage documented is for standing up a local dev environment to build/test Tsuru itself (contributing guide) — it is not a way to deploy end-user apps. App deploys only
Running development environment with Docker Compose. This guide will provide step-by-step instructions on how to set up and run a minimal Tsuru environment for building and testing Tsuru on your local
https://docs.tsuru.io/contributing/docker-compose/ -
Automatic SSL Yes verified 2026-07-30
Issuer is used to automate the issuance of SSL/TLS certificates.
https://docs.tsuru.io/tsuru_client/tsuru_certificate_issuer/ -
Multi-server support Yes verified 2026-07-30
Corroborated by the admin guide: 'Cluster is used by provisioner to deploy applications in a specific kubernetes installation' — Tsuru manages apps across multiple clusters/nodes (https://docs.tsuru.i
Multi-cloud support. Tsuru supports compatibility with multiple cloud providers, providing developers the freedom to choose their preferred infrastructure. Seamlessly deploy applications across differ
https://docs.tsuru.io/getting_started/overview/ -
Web UI quality No verified 2026-07-30
Tsuru's official web dashboard (tsuru-dashboard) and its companion tsuru-autoscale-dashboard are both archived/unmaintained on GitHub. Tsuru today is CLI/API-first with no actively maintained web UI —
This repository was archived by the owner on Sep 12, 2024. It is now read-only.
https://github.com/tsuru/tsuru-dashboard -
Resource usage Yes verified 2026-07-30
tsuru app quota view - Displays the current usage and limit of the given app.
https://docs.tsuru.io/tsuru_client/tsuru_app_quota/ -
Database provisioning Yes verified 2026-07-30
Corroborated by the main repo README: 'Back apps with add-on resources such as SQL and NoSQL databases, including memcached, Redis, and many others' (https://raw.githubusercontent.com/tsuru/tsuru/main
Manage provisioned resources (like a database or proxy) that can be linked to an application.
https://docs.tsuru.io/tsuru_client/tsuru_service_instance/
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.