Dokku

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About Dokku

Dokku is a self-hosted PaaS that recreates the core Heroku deployment experience — build, deploy, scale, and route applications with a simple git push — on infrastructure you control. It runs on Docker to isolate applications and now supports multiple schedulers, including Docker local, Kubernetes via k3s, Nomad, and a null scheduler for testing, letting the same deployment workflow scale from a personal VPS to a multi-node cluster. A plugin hook system (plugn) allows the CLI to be extended for databases, alternate reverse proxies (Traefik, Caddy, HAProxy alongside the default nginx), SSL via Let's Encrypt, and hundreds of other community-maintained plugins without modifying Dokku's core. Installation is handled through a single bootstrap script on Ubuntu or Debian, and application lifecycle management covers domains, SSH-key-based access control, process scaling, and logging. Dokku is community-supported through GitHub Issues and Slack, with a separate commercial Dokku Pro offering adding a web UI, JSON API, and HTTPS-based git push.

Key Features

• Git-push deployment like Heroku
• Docker-based application isolation
• Multiple scheduler support: Docker local, Kubernetes (k3s), Nomad
• Extensible plugin system (plugn) with hundreds of community plugins
• Built-in Let's Encrypt SSL automation
• Support for alternate reverse proxies: Traefik, Caddy, HAProxy
• SSH-key-based deployment access control
• Process scaling and multi-app hosting on a single server
• Single-command bootstrap installation on Ubuntu/Debian
• Runs on both amd64 and arm64
• Active GitHub Actions CI with linting and multi-version testing
• Community support via GitHub Issues and Slack
• Optional commercial Dokku Pro with web UI and API
• Fully open source under MIT License
• Mature project with over a decade of continuous development

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