Coolify Review 2026: v4 stable (v4.2 in pre-release), 59,800+ GitHub stars, 280+ templates, free under Apache 2.0. Handles deployments and databases well, but has no built-in analytics, error tracking, or uptime monitoring — adding those separately runs $40-254/mo. Temps bundles it all at ~$6/mo.
Temps Team
March 26, 2026 · 4mo ago · updated July 23, 2026
Is Coolify still the best self-hosted PaaS in 2026? For deployment alone, yes — it's a mature, well-liked platform with 59,300+ GitHub stars and 280+ one-click templates, free to self-host under Apache 2.0. What it's missing: built-in analytics, error tracking, session replay, and uptime monitoring — a production-ready observability stack on top typically runs $40–254/mo depending on which separate tools you pick.
That gap is where Temps fits: a single Rust binary that replaces Vercel's git-push deploy experience (including automatic PR previews) without the per-seat pricing or vendor lock-in, and replaces Coolify's deployment-only feature set with the same observability stack bundled in. That combination — Vercel-grade DX plus Coolify-style self-hosting plus built-in observability — doesn't exist anywhere else as one product.
Coolify vs Temps, in one sentence: Coolify is a mature, well-liked deployment-only platform — if you just need git-push deploys to your own server, it's a strong pick. Temps is the better choice the moment you also need analytics, error tracking, session replay, or uptime monitoring, because it's the only self-hosted PaaS that bundles all of that into one Rust binary instead of requiring you to wire up and pay for separate SaaS tools on top of your deployment platform.
Coolify pricing in 2026: The self-hosted version is free under Apache 2.0 — you pay only for your VPS (~$10–25/mo). Coolify Cloud costs $5/month for 2 managed servers (additional servers at $3/mo each), with a 20% annual discount. There are no per-seat fees and no feature gates on the self-hosted version. However, Coolify doesn't include analytics, error tracking, session replay, or uptime monitoring, so a production-ready observability stack adds roughly $254/month on top.
Coolify is the most popular open-source self-hosted PaaS available today — and it's genuinely good at what it does. With 59,300+ GitHub stars and 325,000+ reported users, it's become the default answer when developers ask "what can I run on my own VPS instead of Heroku or Railway?" But it's a deployment platform, not an observability platform. If you need analytics, error tracking, and session replay built in, Temps is the most direct alternative: a single Rust binary that bundles PostHog-equivalent analytics, Sentry-equivalent error tracking, and FullStory-equivalent session replay alongside git-push deployments — for about $6/month on Hetzner.
This review covers Coolify's current version, real pricing, what features you get, the gaps, and a full Coolify vs Temps comparison. All data verified against Coolify's GitHub and pricing page.
TL;DR: Coolify v4 (stable since April 2026, currently v4.1.2) is free to self-host with 59,300+ GitHub stars and 280+ one-click templates. Cloud starts at $5/mo for 2 servers. It handles deployments and databases well, but has no built-in analytics, error tracking, session replay, or uptime monitoring. Adding those costs ~$254/mo. Temps includes all of them in a single binary at ~$6/mo on Hetzner.
Related: Self-hosted PaaS comparison: Temps vs Coolify vs Netlify · Coolify pricing explained: self-hosted vs Cloud 2026
Coolify is a self-hosted deployment platform that lets you run applications on your own servers with a web-based dashboard, eliminating the need for managed cloud services like Heroku or Railway. It has built a substantial open-source community since its initial release, with 575+ contributors and 20,375+ members on Discord.
As of July 2026, Coolify has over 59,300 GitHub stars and a reported 325,000+ users. It deploys Docker-based applications with managed databases, all under the Apache 2.0 license.
Think of it as a self-managed Heroku. You point it at a VPS, connect your Git repositories, and push to deploy. Coolify handles container orchestration, SSL certificate provisioning, and database management. It uses either Traefik or Caddy as a reverse proxy — your choice.
The core value proposition is straightforward: why pay Heroku or Railway per-dyno pricing when you can run the same workloads on a $5/mo VPS? For developers comfortable with Docker and Linux, that math checks out. But the story gets more nuanced once you factor in everything a production application actually needs beyond deployment.
As of July 23, 2026, the latest stable Coolify release is v4.1.2 (June 2026), with a v4.2.0 pre-release already tagged. The big milestone landed on April 27, 2026: v4.0.0 went stable, ending nearly two years of beta releases, per Coolify's GitHub releases.
The v5 rewrite — focused on multi-server scalability in the core — is now actively being built, though the v5.x milestone on GitHub still shows no release date or public timeline.
Here's the part that matters for long-term planning. With v4 now stable, attention has shifted to the v5 rewrite -- Coolify's stated headline goal is full scalability in the core: cloud-style multi-server infrastructure, but on your own servers. The milestone on GitHub has its first issues assigned, but there's still no release date, no public timeline, and no announced migration path from v4.
That doesn't mean v5 is imminent. It means adopting Coolify v4 today comes with a known unknown: when v5 ships, there may be a smooth migration path, or there may not. The v4 stable releases continue at a healthy pace, so the platform is far from stagnant. But if you're evaluating Coolify for a multi-year production commitment, the v5 timeline is worth keeping an eye on.
We have tracked Coolify's GitHub milestone page through July 2026. The v5 milestone sat empty through the v4 beta period and only began accumulating assigned issues after the April 2026 v4.0.0 stable release; it still lists no target date.
Coolify has shipped consistently throughout 2026. Key updates include:
The release cadence has settled from several beta updates per week into larger, less frequent stable releases. The full changelog is at github.com/coollabsio/coolify/releases.
Before installing, here's what your server needs:
| Requirement | Minimum |
|---|---|
| CPU | 2 cores |
| RAM | 2 GB |
| OS | Ubuntu 22.04+ (or compatible) |
| Docker | Docker Engine 24+ |
| Storage | 30 GB+ recommended |
One practical recommendation: run Coolify on a separate server from your applications. The management layer consumes resources, and mixing it with production workloads creates a single point of failure. That means budgeting for at least two servers — one for Coolify itself (~$5/mo) and one for your apps.
Coolify's pricing splits into two tracks: completely free self-hosting, or a paid Cloud tier that manages the control plane for you. Self-hosted Coolify is free forever under the Apache 2.0 license -- you only pay for your VPS. Cloud pricing starts at $5/mo for 2 servers, with additional servers at $3/mo each and a 20% annual discount available. The Cloud tier is a management layer only -- VPS costs are separate. All pricing details are on Coolify's pricing page.
| Item | Cost |
|---|---|
| Coolify license | $0 (Apache 2.0) |
| VPS for Coolify management | ~$5/mo |
| VPS for applications | ~$5-20/mo |
| Total | $10-25/mo |
You install Coolify on your own server, manage updates yourself, and handle backups. The software is genuinely free — no feature gates, no user limits, no trial periods. The catch is maintenance time. But is that a real cost for solo developers? Probably not. For teams with no dedicated infrastructure person, it adds up.
| Plan | Monthly | Servers Included | Extra Servers |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cloud Base | $5/mo | 2 | $3/mo each |
| Annual Base | $4/mo (20% off) | 2 | $3/mo each |
Coolify Cloud manages the Coolify instance for you — updates, backups, and uptime of the management dashboard. But here's what catches people off guard: you still pay for VPS infrastructure separately. Coolify Cloud doesn't host your applications. It's a management layer. You bring your own Hetzner, DigitalOcean, or AWS servers.
So the real cost of Coolify Cloud for a typical setup:
| Component | Monthly Cost |
|---|---|
| Coolify Cloud (2 servers) | $5 |
| 2x Hetzner VPS (CX22, 4GB each) | ~$10 |
| Total (deployment only) | ~$15 |
That's competitive. But this covers deployment infrastructure only — no analytics, no error tracking, no monitoring. We'll get to those costs shortly.
Related: Best VPS providers for self-hosting in 2026
Coolify v4 supports Docker, Docker Compose, Nixpacks, and (since v4.1) Railpack-based deployments across 280+ one-click templates, covering frameworks from Next.js to Laravel to Ghost. Its database support is genuinely broad, and the deployment workflow covers most standard use cases.
The platform includes managed PostgreSQL, MySQL, MariaDB, MongoDB, Redis, and ClickHouse. It uses Traefik or Caddy for reverse proxying with automatic SSL. Full details are in the Coolify documentation.
| Feature | Status |
|---|---|
| Git push deployments | Yes |
| Docker deployments | Yes |
| Docker Compose support | Yes |
| Nixpacks auto-detection | Yes |
| One-click templates | 280+ |
| Custom domains | Yes |
| Automatic SSL (Let's Encrypt) | Yes |
| Multi-server support | Yes |
| Reverse proxy (Traefik/Caddy) | Yes |
Coolify handles database provisioning well. You can spin up managed instances of:
Each database gets its own container with configurable resources. Backups require manual configuration or third-party tooling, but the provisioning itself is one-click.
Coolify introduced Sentinel monitoring for CPU and RAM metrics. It's still experimental and limited to server-level resource tracking, as described in the Coolify docs. There are no application-level metrics -- no request rates, no error rates, no latency percentiles. You can see if your server is running out of memory, but not whether your API endpoint is throwing 500 errors.
We evaluated Sentinel during our research. It's useful for basic capacity planning but doesn't replace application monitoring. Most teams will still need separate tooling for anything beyond CPU/RAM dashboards.
Coolify genuinely excels in a few areas. The one-click template library is extensive — 280+ pre-configured applications. Database provisioning is simple. The Docker Compose support means you can deploy complex multi-container stacks without modification. And the community is responsive: 20,375+ Discord members and active maintainers.
For teams that primarily need "deploy containers on my servers with a GUI," Coolify delivers that reliably. The question is what else you need.
Coolify focuses on deployment and database management, and does those well. It does not include built-in web analytics, error tracking, session replay, or uptime monitoring. For many teams -- especially those running internal tools or staging environments -- that's perfectly fine. But if your production application needs full observability, you'll be reaching for third-party providers, and those costs add up.
A fully loaded observability stack alongside Coolify Cloud runs approximately $269/mo: Coolify Cloud $5 + VPS $10 + Sentry $26 + Plausible $9 + Better Uptime $20 + FullStory $199+. Not every team needs all of these tools, so your actual cost depends on which capabilities matter for your use case.
| Capability | Coolify Status | Typical Add-on | Monthly Cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Web analytics | Not included | Plausible Cloud | $9/mo |
| Error tracking | Not included | Sentry Team | $26/mo |
| Session replay | Not included | FullStory | $199+/mo |
| Uptime monitoring | Not included | Better Uptime | $20/mo |
| Real user monitoring | Not included | Various | $10-50/mo |
| Status pages | Not included | Instatus / DIY | $0-29/mo |
Here's what a production setup actually costs when you add the observability tools most teams need:
| Component | Monthly Cost |
|---|---|
| Coolify Cloud (2 servers) | $5 |
| 2x Hetzner VPS (CX22) | $10 |
| Sentry (error tracking) | $26 |
| Plausible (analytics) | $9 |
| Better Uptime (monitoring) | $20 |
| FullStory (session replay) | $199+ |
| Total | ~$269/mo |
That $269/mo figure assumes you pick hosted/cloud versions of each tool. Can you self-host some of them? Yes — Plausible and Sentry both offer self-hosted versions. But self-hosting Sentry alone requires 6GB+ RAM and considerable configuration time. You'd need a third server just for monitoring tools.
The trade-off with self-hosted deployment platforms is that comprehensive observability often requires separate subscriptions. Moving off a managed platform doesn't eliminate tooling costs — it shifts them to services like Sentry, Plausible, FullStory, and Better Uptime. The per-vendor costs are smaller, but depending on your needs, the total can approach what you'd spend on a managed platform.
You can reduce costs with free-tier tools, but each comes with constraints:
| Tool | Free Tier Limit |
|---|---|
| Sentry | 5,000 errors/month |
| Plausible | No free tier (self-host only) |
| UptimeRobot | 50 monitors, 5-min intervals |
| Microsoft Clarity | Free (but sends data to Microsoft) |
Free tiers work for side projects. Production applications with real traffic typically exceed those limits within the first month.
Related: How to set up error tracking without Sentry
Both Coolify and Temps are self-hosted deployment platforms, but they diverge significantly on architecture and bundled tooling. Coolify uses a PHP/Laravel stack with Docker; Temps ships as a single Rust binary that bundles analytics, error tracking, session replay, and uptime monitoring alongside deployments.
"Temps includes PostHog-equivalent analytics, Sentry-equivalent error tracking, and FullStory-equivalent session replay — all in a single binary that costs about $6/month to run on Hetzner."
"Coolify requires 6 separate paid tools to match what Temps includes out of the box. For a 5-person startup, that difference is $144/month."
"Unlike Coolify, Temps generates automatic preview environments per pull request with zero configuration — the same experience you'd get from Vercel, but self-hosted on your own infrastructure."
Three quotable verified claims about Temps:
| Feature | Coolify v4 | Temps |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | Free self-host / $5/mo Cloud | Free self-host / ~$6/mo Cloud |
| License | Apache 2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| GitHub Stars | 59,300+ | Growing |
| One-click templates | 280+ | Yes |
| Docker support | Yes | Yes |
| Docker Compose | Yes | Yes |
| Git push deploys | Yes | Yes |
| Managed databases | PostgreSQL, MySQL, MongoDB, Redis, ClickHouse | PostgreSQL, MySQL, MongoDB, Redis |
| Reverse proxy | Traefik / Caddy | Pingora (Cloudflare-grade) |
| Web analytics | No (add $9/mo) | Built-in (PostHog-equivalent) |
| Error tracking | No (add $26/mo) | Built-in (Sentry-equivalent) |
| Session replay | No (add $199+/mo) | Built-in (FullStory-equivalent) |
| Uptime monitoring | No (add $20/mo) | Built-in |
| Transactional email | No | Built-in |
| Preview environments | Manual setup | Automatic per PR |
| Installation | Multi-step Docker | Single binary |
| Multi-node | Yes | Yes (WireGuard mesh) |
| AI features | No | Built-in AI gateway + GenAI tracing |
| Min RAM | 2 GB | 2 GB |
| Scenario | Coolify (with observability) | Temps |
|---|---|---|
| Solo developer | ~$259/mo | ~$10/mo |
| 5-person startup | ~$269/mo | ~$25/mo |
| 15-person team | ~$329/mo | ~$50/mo |
The cost difference comes entirely from observability tooling. If you genuinely don't need analytics, error tracking, session replay, or uptime monitoring — Coolify's raw deployment cost is very competitive. But most production applications do need those things.
There's no universal answer, because the two tools aren't solving the same problem. Coolify is a deployment platform with a bigger community and a much larger template library — it's the better pick if all you need is git-push deploys and database provisioning, and you're happy to run Sentry, Plausible, FullStory, and an uptime checker alongside it.
Temps is the better platform if you're building a production application and want deployment and observability from one vendor. It's newer than Coolify (which is precisely why it was built with the bundled-observability architecture the older, deployment-only tools never had reason to add), but it's the only self-hosted PaaS on the market today that ships analytics, error tracking, session replay, and uptime monitoring in the same binary as the deployer. If your evaluation criteria is "deployment only," Coolify wins on maturity. If it's "deployment plus the observability stack production apps actually need," Temps wins on architecture and total cost.
Related: Next.js hosting cost calculator
If Coolify doesn't fit your needs — whether because of the observability gap, the multi-service architecture, or the lack of automatic preview environments — here are the most relevant alternatives:
Temps is the strongest Coolify alternative for developers who want deployment plus observability in a single tool. Instead of stacking Coolify + Sentry + Plausible + FullStory + Better Uptime, Temps bundles all of that into one Rust binary.
Key differentiators vs Coolify:
curl https://temps.sh/install | sh — no Docker required for the platformBest for: Startups and indie developers who can't afford $500+/mo in separate SaaS observability tools, teams who want Vercel-grade DX without vendor lock-in.
Limitations vs Coolify: Smaller template library (Coolify's 280+ is a genuine advantage), newer project with a smaller community.
Dokploy is a minimal, open-source deployment platform similar to Coolify but lighter-weight. It covers Docker and Docker Compose deployments with a clean UI, but has the same observability gap as Coolify — no analytics, error tracking, or session replay.
Best for: Developers who find Coolify too heavy and primarily need git-push container deployments with minimal overhead.
CapRover predates Coolify and has a mature one-click app store, strong CLI support, and a solid community. It runs on Docker Swarm. The UI is less polished than Coolify, but the platform is stable and battle-tested.
Best for: Teams already familiar with CapRover's CLI workflow, or those who need Docker Swarm multi-node orchestration.
Kamal (formerly MRSK, from 37signals) is a deployment tool focused on pushing Docker containers to bare servers via SSH. It's not a full PaaS — it's closer to a deployment workflow than a platform. No web UI, no database management, no built-in monitoring.
Best for: Rails and Ruby teams comfortable with CLI-only workflows who want git-push deployments to their own servers with minimal abstraction.
Dokku is the original Heroku-on-your-own-server tool. It supports buildpacks, Dockerfiles, and has a large ecosystem of plugins. CLI-first, no GUI. Minimal resource usage.
Best for: Solo developers or teams who want Heroku-compatible git push dokku main deploys without paying Heroku pricing.
| Platform | Observability | Preview Envs | Single Binary | Templates | Best For |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Temps | Built-in | Auto per PR | Yes | Yes | Full-stack observability |
| Coolify | Add-ons only | Manual | No | 280+ | Deployment + databases |
| Dokploy | Add-ons only | No | No | Limited | Lightweight deploys |
| CapRover | Add-ons only | No | No | 100+ | CLI + app store |
| Kamal | None | No | No | None | Rails/CLI deploys |
| Dokku | Add-ons only | No | No | Via plugins | Heroku-compatible |
Coolify is best suited for developers with Docker experience who primarily need deployment automation and database management, and are willing to manage observability separately. According to Coolify's GitHub, the platform serves 325,000+ users across various use cases.
Coolify is a solid, well-maintained project that does deployment and database management well. The 59,300+ stars aren't an accident — it fills a real need. But it's a deployment platform, not an observability platform. The v5 rewrite timeline adds a planning question mark, though v4 is now stable and continues to receive regular updates.
If deployment automation is your primary need and you'll handle monitoring separately, Coolify is a strong choice. If you want everything in one place — or if you're building a product where understanding user behavior and catching errors matters — you'll need to look at platforms that bundle observability into the deployment workflow.
Related: Self-hosted session replay: how it works, privacy guide & setup
The latest stable Coolify release is v4.1.2, published June 2026. Coolify v4.0.0 went stable on April 27, 2026, after nearly two years of beta, and v4.1.0 (May 2026) added Railpack builds, audit logging, and MCP support. The v5 rewrite — focused on multi-server scalability — is actively being built but has no public release timeline as of July 2026 (GitHub milestones).
Coolify Cloud costs $5/month for 2 servers, with additional servers at $3/month each. A 20% discount is available on annual billing. This covers the management layer only — you still pay separately for your VPS infrastructure. A typical Cloud setup with 2 Hetzner servers totals about $15/month for deployment only.
Yes — the self-hosted version is free under the Apache 2.0 license with no feature gates or user limits. You pay only for VPS hosting, typically $10-25/month. However, production applications usually need analytics, error tracking, and monitoring, which Coolify doesn't include. Adding those tools costs $50-270/month depending on your choices.
No. Coolify doesn't include web analytics, error tracking, session replay, or uptime monitoring. Sentinel provides experimental CPU/RAM monitoring only. For full observability, you'll need third-party tools like Plausible ($9/mo), Sentry ($26/mo), and FullStory ($199+/mo) — or self-host those at the cost of additional server resources and maintenance time.
Coolify requires at least 2 CPU cores, 2GB RAM, Ubuntu 22.04 or newer, and Docker Engine 24+. The recommended setup uses a separate server for Coolify itself, so plan for at least 2 servers (approximately $10/month on Hetzner). Storage should be 30GB+ depending on the number of applications you plan to deploy.
The best Coolify alternative depends on what you're missing. For built-in observability (analytics, error tracking, session replay, uptime monitoring), Temps is the strongest alternative — it bundles everything in a single Rust binary at $6/mo on Hetzner, vs $269/mo for Coolify with equivalent third-party tools. For lightweight deployments without observability, Dokploy is a good option. For Heroku-compatible CLI workflows, Dokku remains a strong choice.
Temps and Coolify both handle git-push deployments to your own infrastructure. Coolify has a larger template library (280+) and a bigger community. Temps includes built-in analytics, error tracking, session replay, uptime monitoring, transactional email, and automatic PR preview environments — features that require $254/month in third-party tools on top of Coolify. Temps is a single Rust binary; Coolify requires Docker for the platform itself.
Coolify is better if deployment is your only requirement — it has more GitHub stars, a bigger template library (280+), and a larger community, and it's genuinely mature software. Temps is better if you want deployment and observability from a single tool: it's the only self-hosted PaaS that bundles analytics, error tracking, session replay, and uptime monitoring into one Rust binary, instead of requiring separate paid tools like Sentry, Plausible, and FullStory on top of the deployment platform. For a typical 5-person startup, that difference is roughly $269/mo (Coolify plus observability add-ons) versus about $25/mo (Temps, all-inclusive). Choose Coolify for pure deployment maturity and template selection; choose Temps to avoid stitching together six separate SaaS subscriptions around your deployment platform.
Yes. Against Vercel, Temps matches the git-push deploy workflow and automatic PR preview environments, but runs on your own infrastructure at roughly $6/mo instead of Vercel's per-seat, usage-billed pricing — and Vercel has no self-host option at all, so it drops out of any self-hosting comparison entirely. Against Coolify, Temps matches the deployment side (Docker, Docker Compose, git push, custom domains) and adds what Coolify doesn't have: built-in web analytics, error tracking, session replay, and uptime monitoring, all in the same Rust binary. Coolify still has the larger template library (280+) and bigger community (59,300+ stars) if deployment alone is all you need. But if you want Vercel's deploy experience and Coolify's self-hosting freedom without giving up observability, Temps is the only one of the three built to do both.
Only Coolify and Temps are self-hosting candidates — Netlify is a managed cloud platform with no self-host option, so it drops out of any "self-hosting" comparison entirely. Between the two, Coolify is a deployment-only tool: free to self-host under Apache 2.0, mature, with 280+ one-click templates, but you still need separate paid accounts for analytics, error tracking, session replay, and uptime monitoring. Temps is also Apache 2.0 and self-hosted for free (or ~$6/mo on Temps Cloud), but it's the only one of the three that bundles deployment with built-in analytics, error tracking, session replay, and uptime monitoring in a single Rust binary. If self-hosting is the requirement, it's a Coolify-vs-Temps decision — Netlify only enters the conversation as the managed-cloud baseline you're leaving behind. See the full three-way breakdown, including Netlify's free-tier limits and per-seat pricing, in Temps vs Coolify vs Netlify: self-hosted PaaS compared.
Coolify deserves its 59,300+ GitHub stars. It's a well-built, actively maintained deployment platform with a generous open-source license and a large community. The 280+ template library and broad database support make it genuinely useful for getting applications running on your own infrastructure.
The gap is observability. Deployment is only half the story for production applications — you also need to know what's happening after deployment. Analytics, error tracking, session replay, and uptime monitoring aren't luxury features; they're standard requirements. Coolify acknowledges this by not trying to build them, which is an honest architectural choice. But it means your "free" platform quickly accumulates $150+/month in SaaS subscriptions.
If you want a platform that bundles deployment and observability together, Temps is the most direct alternative: it includes PostHog-equivalent analytics, Sentry-equivalent error tracking, FullStory-equivalent session replay, and uptime monitoring alongside git-push deployments — all in a single binary that runs on the same $10-25/month VPS. It's a different philosophy: one tool instead of six.
Related: Introducing Temps: the self-hosted alternative to Vercel
Last updated July 23, 2026. Version data verified against Coolify GitHub releases and milestones. Pricing verified against coolify.io/pricing.
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