Overview
CapRover has been around since 2017 as a self-hosted 'Heroku on steroids'. It installs as a Docker service on your server and gives you a web dashboard and CLI for deploying apps. Under the hood it uses Docker Swarm for containers and clustering, nginx (with a customizable template) for routing and load balancing, and Let's Encrypt for free certificates. Remove CapRover and your containers keep running.
You can deploy anything that runs in a container, from the dashboard, the caprover deploy CLI, a webhook or your Git workflow. A catalogue of one-click apps covers databases such as MariaDB, MySQL, MongoDB and Postgres, WordPress, monitoring tools and dozens of other services. Ports, persistent directories, environment variables and instance counts are managed in one place, and additional servers can join the Swarm cluster.
The core is free. Like other self-hosted tools, uptime, backups and security updates are your responsibility, and the one-click databases are containers you run, not managed services.
Pricing and plans
Free tier · no card
CapRover core is free forever to self-host; you pay only for your servers.
At the limit Not stated The vendor does not say what happens at the limit, or we have not found it yet.
| Plan | Price | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| CapRover core | $0 | Apache 2.0 with an appendix covering paid features |
| CapRover Pro | Optional paid add-on service; price not confirmed |
What it does
- Docker Swarm clustering
- Add nodes to a Swarm cluster and let CapRover load-balance app instances.
- One-click apps
- Launch databases, WordPress, monitoring and dozens of services from a catalogue.
- Automatic HTTPS
- Let's Encrypt certificates with one-click HTTP-to-HTTPS redirects.
- Customizable nginx
- Edit the nginx template per app when defaults are not enough.
- CLI and webhooks
- Deploy from scripts, CI pipelines or Git webhooks.
Strengths and limitations
Strengths
- Free and mature, with over 15,000 GitHub stars.
- Multi-node scaling through Docker Swarm.
- No lock-in: apps keep running without CapRover.
- Both a web GUI and a CLI.
Limitations
- Self-hosted: you handle server maintenance, backups and security.
- One-click databases are unmanaged containers.
- Relies on Docker Swarm, which has a smaller ecosystem than Kubernetes.
- Collects anonymous usage analytics unless disabled.
Who it suits
Good for
- Developers moving small apps off expensive PaaS onto a VPS
- Small clusters of a few servers
- Self-hosting open-source tools with one click
Look elsewhere if
- Teams without Linux or Docker operations experience
- Workloads that need managed databases and SLAs
Alternatives to CapRover
| Tool | From | Free option | Stages |
|---|---|---|---|
| Railway Usage-billed PaaS | $5/mo | Free tier | |
| alwaysdata European managed hosting | €5/mo | Free tier | |
| Leapcell Serverless PaaS | $12.90/mo | Free tier | |
| Coolify Self-hosted PaaS | $5/mo | Free tier | |
| Netlify Frontend and serverless platform | $9/mo | Free tier | |
| Zeabur Deployment platform on dedicated servers | $5/mo | Free tier |
Questions
Is CapRover free?
Yes, CapRover core is free to self-host; an optional paid CapRover Pro service adds extra features.
Can CapRover run on multiple servers?
Yes. It uses Docker Swarm, so you can add nodes to the cluster and CapRover load-balances across them.
What happens to my apps if I remove CapRover?
They keep working; CapRover states there is no lock-in because apps run as standard Docker services.
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