Dokploy lightweight PaaS (31k stars): simpler Heroku alternative for smaller teams. Docker Compose-based deployments on a Liquid Web 8 GB VPS.
Coolify and Dokploy both turn a VPS into a Heroku-style platform: push code, get a URL, forget about Nginx configs and SSL certificates. Both are Apache-2.0 licensed, both install with a single command, and both support Docker Compose deployments, Let's Encrypt TLS, Git webhooks, and database provisioning. The difference is scale, maturity, and complexity tolerance.
Heroku's free tier was discontinued in 2022 and paid plans now start at $5/dyno/month — with no included databases, storage billed separately, and costs that compound quickly as you add apps and workers. Self-hosted PaaS tools replicate the Heroku experience (Git push to deploy, automatic SSL, web UI, database provisioning) on a VPS you control, at a fraction of the cost.
Vercel Pro costs $20/month per team member — and that's before you add bandwidth overages, concurrency limits, or a second project. If you're running more than a handful of apps, the bill grows faster than your team. Self-hosting a deployment platform on a $3.50/month VPS lets you deploy unlimited apps, keep your code and environment variables off a third-party cloud, and pay a flat monthly rate that doesn't scale with your headcount.
