March 26, 2026 (2w ago)
Written by Temps Team
Last updated March 26, 2026 (2w ago)
Coolify is the most popular open-source, self-hosted PaaS available today. It lets you deploy Docker-based applications to your own servers with a web dashboard, managed databases, and 280+ one-click templates. The project has earned over 52,200 GitHub stars and a reported 325,000+ users, and it's completely free to self-host under the Apache 2.0 license.
But "free" gets complicated when you need production observability. Coolify ships without web analytics, error tracking, session replay, or uptime monitoring — and adding those tools from third-party vendors costs $150+/month on top of your VPS bill.
This review covers Coolify's current version, real pricing (self-hosted and Cloud), what features you actually get, and where the gaps are. All data verified against Coolify's GitHub repository and pricing page as of March 26, 2026.
TL;DR: Coolify v4 is free to self-host with 52,200+ GitHub stars and 280+ one-click templates. Cloud starts at $5/mo for 2 servers. It handles deployments and databases well, but lacks built-in analytics, error tracking, session replay, and uptime monitoring. A realistic production stack with those tools runs ~$169/mo.
Related: Self-hosted PaaS comparison: Temps vs Coolify vs Netlify
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 March 2026, Coolify has over 52,200 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.
[IMAGE: Coolify dashboard showing deployment overview and server management — coolify self-hosted paas dashboard 2026]
As of March 24, 2026, the latest Coolify release is v4.0.0-beta.470, with the v4 stable milestone sitting at 94% completion according to Coolify's GitHub milestones. Coolify has been in active v4 beta development throughout 2025 and into 2026, shipping frequent point releases.
The v5 rewrite milestone currently shows no assigned issues or public timeline on GitHub.
Here's the part that matters for long-term planning. The v5 rewrite is in early planning stages -- the milestone on GitHub has no issues assigned yet, no public timeline, and no announced architecture decisions. We've tracked this milestone weekly since January 2026, and it hasn't moved.
That doesn't mean v5 won't happen. It means adopting Coolify v4 today comes with a known unknown: when v5 ships, there may be a migration path, or there may not. The v4 beta 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 tracked Coolify's GitHub milestone page weekly from January through March 2026. The v5 milestone remained in early planning throughout with no issues assigned.
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, and Nixpacks-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 $169/mo: Coolify Cloud $5 + VPS $10 + Sentry $26 + Plausible $9 + Better Uptime $20 + LogRocket $99. 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 | LogRocket | $99/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 |
| LogRocket (session replay) | $99 |
| Total | ~$169/mo |
[CHART: Stacked bar chart — Coolify production stack cost breakdown showing deployment ($15) vs observability ($154) — source: vendor pricing pages March 2026]
That $169/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, LogRocket, 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 on architecture and bundled tooling. Coolify uses a PHP/Laravel stack with Docker, while Temps ships as a single Rust binary with built-in observability.
Coolify is built on PHP/Laravel and offers 280+ one-click templates, though it doesn't include observability tools natively. Temps takes a different approach as a single Rust binary that bundles analytics, error tracking, session replay, and uptime monitoring alongside deployments. Both are free to self-host.
| Feature | Coolify v4 | Temps |
|---|---|---|
| License | Apache 2.0 | Free to self-host |
| GitHub Stars | 52,200+ | 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 | Built-in |
| Error tracking | No | Built-in |
| Session replay | No | Built-in |
| Uptime monitoring | No | 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) |
| Min RAM | 2 GB | 2 GB |
| Scenario | Coolify (with observability) | Temps |
|---|---|---|
| Solo developer | ~$85/mo | ~$10/mo |
| 5-person startup | ~$169/mo | ~$25/mo |
| 15-person team | ~$200/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.
Related: Next.js hosting cost calculator
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 52,200+ stars aren't an accident — it fills a real need. But it's a deployment platform, not an observability platform. The v5 rewrite uncertainty adds a planning question mark, though v4 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, you'll need to look at platforms that bundle observability into the deployment workflow.
Related: Session replay: what it is, how it works, and when you need it
The latest Coolify release is v4.0.0-beta.470 as of March 24, 2026. The v4 stable milestone is at 94% completion. Coolify ships frequent beta updates — often several per week — with bug fixes and incremental features. The v5 rewrite milestone remains at 0% with no public timeline.
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 $50-170/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 LogRocket ($99/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.
Coolify deserves its 52,200 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 includes analytics, error tracking, 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 March 26, 2026. Version data verified against Coolify GitHub Milestones. Pricing verified against coolify.io/pricing.
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