Cloud Hosting & PaaS Platforms
4.5/5.0
VerifiedFreeLast technical review:
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Dokku

An open source, lightweight PaaS alternative for deploying and managing applications.

Pricing

$0/mo

Free
Score

4.5/5

License
MIT
Last technical review
2026-10-28
Available plansVisit website (opens in a new tab)

Technical Overview

Dokku is an open source, self-hosted Platform-as-a-Service designed as a lightweight alternative to Heroku. It enables development teams to build, scale, and manage application lifecycles using Docker containers on their own infrastructure. It stands out for its Bash-based architecture and git push deployments, eliminating vendor lock-in and proprietary contracts.

Analyst Evaluation: Pros and Limitations

Verified Advantages

  • Open source software with no vendor lock-in or licensing fees.
  • Simple and straightforward deployments via traditional git push commands.
  • Very low resource footprint compared to heavy orchestration platforms.

Technical Considerations

  • Requires advanced Linux system administration skills for maintenance.
  • Manual configuration is required for high availability and horizontal scaling.

Technical Capabilities & Features

5/7
Included:REST & GraphQL API
Not available:SSO / SAML Authentication
Included:Self-Hosted Option
Included:Full Data Export
Included:Role-Based Access Control (RBAC)
Included:Custom Domains & SSL
Not available:Immutable Audit Logs
Scorecard
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Technical Scorecard: Dokku

87/100
DX & Tech Documentation
Excellent
90/100
Pricing Fairness
Excellent
100/100
Security & Governance
Favorable
70/100
Data Portability & Sovereignty
Excellent
90/100
Performance & Reliability
Excellent
85/100

Time to Value & Fit by Segment: Dokku

Estimated Time-to-Value< 1 hour (Immediate)

Near-instantaneous deployment with minimal technical friction.

Learning CurveModerate (Standard)

Requires consulting technical documentation and basic credentials setup.

Fit Index by Organization Size

Startup & Agile Teams1 to 50 members
90%
Mid-Market & Scaleup50 to 500 members
70%
Corporate Enterprise500+ members
40%
Pricing & TCO
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Pricing

$0.00/mo

Model: FREE.

Free Tier Verification:

  • No credit card required
  • Commercial use allowed
  • Unlimited usage with no expiration
  • No mandatory watermarks
Get Dokku (opens in a new tab)
Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) Projection: Dokku$0.00/mo
Deterministic cost estimation at 12 and 36 months based on team size, including SSO tax premiums and annual prepay discounts.
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Licensing Cost (1 to 100+ seats)
$0/forever
Unlimited team members with zero penalties
SSO Tax (SAML Enterprise)
$0no surcharge
No artificial security barriers
3-Year Investment (Software TCO)
$0total
operates under a zero-cost or open-source model. Licensing TCO is identical:
Usage Surcharges & Bill Shock Simulator: DokkuWhat usage costs as you scale
Detect overage penalties before they impact engineering budget.
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Prototype / MVP (10 GB)

Included base quota in plan: 10 GB.
Low Risk / Predictable Bill
Base Monthly Rate
$0/mo
Fixed subscription or contracted tier
Overage Penalty
$0/month extra
Usage covered within plan quota
Estimated Monthly Invoice
$0/mo
Total monthly cost before taxes
Technical Mitigation Recommendation:

Suitable for development; verify concurrent connection limits.

Base Production (50 GB)

Included base quota in plan: 50 GB.
Low Risk / Predictable Bill
Base Monthly Rate
$0/mo
Fixed subscription or contracted tier
Overage Penalty
$0/month extra
Usage covered within plan quota
Estimated Monthly Invoice
$0/mo
Total monthly cost before taxes
Technical Mitigation Recommendation:

Implement table compression policies and temporal partitioning.

Active Growth (250 GB)

Included base quota in plan: 250 GB.
Low Risk / Predictable Bill
Base Monthly Rate
$0/mo
Fixed subscription or contracted tier
Overage Penalty
$0/month extra
Usage covered within plan quota
Estimated Monthly Invoice
$0/mo
Total monthly cost before taxes
Technical Mitigation Recommendation:

Offload cold backups to standard object storage (S3).

Large Scale (1.000 GB (1 TB))

Included base quota in plan: 1,000 GB.
Low Risk / Predictable Bill
Base Monthly Rate
$0/mo
Fixed subscription or contracted tier
Overage Penalty
$0/month extra
Usage covered within plan quota
Estimated Monthly Invoice
$0/mo
Total monthly cost before taxes
Technical Mitigation Recommendation:

Migrate to dedicated instance or self-hosted cluster to curtail I/O fees.

Security & Data Exit
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Compliance & Security Standards: Dokku

SOC 2 Type IINot reported
ISO 27001Not reported
GDPR / RGPDNot reported
HIPAANot reported
PCI-DSSNot reported
Jurisdiction & Legal Sovereignty
🇺🇸United States [US]Immune to US CLOUD Act (EU Sovereign)DPA On Request
SSO Availability (SAML Enterprise)
No SSO Documented
Data Residency
SELF_HOSTED
AI Privacy Policy
Not evaluated
Data Liberation & Migration Runbook: DokkuDOCKER_IMAGE · TARBALL
Actionable escape runbook and credential export guarantees to mitigate vendor lock-in.
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Supported Structured Export Formats
DOCKER_IMAGETARBALL
Password Hash Portability
Locked: Proprietary Algorithm / No Export

Credential hashes are guarded under proprietary algorithms and cannot be exported.

CLI Command / Rescue Endpoint
dokku apps:report
Exit Protocol & Migration Notes

Dado que Dokku utiliza contenedores Docker estándar y buildpacks, la migración a otros entornos Docker o plataformas PaaS se realiza exportando las imágenes o los volúmenes de datos directamente desde el servidor.

Deployment & Infrastructure Requirements: DokkuMIT
Hardware specs and Docker directives to run on local servers, dedicated VPS, or Kubernetes without telemetry leak to the cloud.
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Minimum Memory1 GB RAM (Recommended)
Compute CPU1 vCPU
Runtime / LanguageGo
Code LicenseMIT
Docker CLI Directive
docker run -d --name dokku -p 8080:8080 dokku:latest
Companion Services & Dependencies:
PostgreSQL 15+Redis 7+
Community & Repository
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Technical Reputation of Dokku

87/100 Technical Trust

Frequent Praises in Production

  • Open source software with no vendor lock-in or licensing fees.
  • Simple and straightforward deployments via traditional git push commands.
  • Very low resource footprint compared to heavy orchestration platforms.

Reported Production Frictions

  • Requires advanced Linux system administration skills for maintenance.
  • Manual configuration is required for high availability and horizontal scaling.
Commercial Treatment & Vendor Lock-in:1-Click Cancellation

Immediate cancellation from account settings without phone calls or forced retention.

Open source repository activity: Dokku32,205
Stars, forks and release cadence
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Stars32.2k
Forks2.1k
Open Issues31
SPDX LicenseMIT
Latest Commit DetectedOct 28, 2026

Frequently Asked Technical Questions (Dokku)

What is Dokku and how does it compare to Heroku?

Dokku is a minimalist PaaS implementation that runs on a single VPS, emulating Heroku's git push developer experience while giving full server control to the user.

What are the hardware requirements to run Dokku?

Dokku can run on modest hardware, with a basic VPS containing 1 GB of RAM being sufficient for small projects, testing, and staging environments.

How are application deployments executed in Dokku?

Deployments are executed using native Git commands, pushing source code to the remote server where Dokku builds the application using buildpacks or Docker containers.

Direct Alternatives

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