Coolify vs strackt — honest comparison — strackt [ ](/ "Home") [How It Works](/how-it-works) [Pricing](/pricing) [Company](/company) [ How It Works ](/how-it-works) [ Pricing ](/pricing) [ Company ](/company) Comparison ---------- Coolify vs strackt ================== Coolify is Docker. strackt is not. Two different bets about what managed self-hosted should mean. Coolify is a great product. Open-source, Docker-native, with an active community shipping a real platform that thousands of developers self-host on their own servers. We respect what coollabs built. This page isn't a pitch to Coolify users who chose it on principle — they chose right for what they wanted. It's for the developers who came to Coolify looking for managed self-hosted, hit the reality that you still operate the platform and the servers yourselves, and started wondering whether someone else could just handle the substrate while keeping their data on their own VPS. Where Coolify wins ------------------ We start here on purpose. ------------------------- Coolify has real strengths strackt doesn't try to match — and isn't trying to compete with. - **Open-source by design.** MIT license, free forever for self-hosted, no vendor lock-in. If you want to own the entire stack — including the orchestration platform itself — Coolify is the only one in this comparison that gives you that. We can't and won't. - **Docker-native, deeply.** Containers, Compose, multi-container stacks, volumes, networking, registries — all first-class. 280+ one-click services. This is what Coolify is built for, and it does it well. - **Active community shipping the product.** Coolify is open-source, contributable, with a real community on GitHub and Discord. You're adopting an active project, not a side hobby. - **Self-host or use the Cloud.** Coolify Cloud manages the control plane on a hosted instance from $5/mo for 2 servers (+$3/mo per additional server). The self-hosted version has the same features for free. Genuine flexibility — you can change your mind without changing tools. - **Broader application support out of the box.** Anything that runs in Docker runs on Coolify — Next.js, Python, Go, Rust, Node, multi-language stacks, anything with a Dockerfile. strackt is Laravel-focused at launch; Coolify covers ground we don't try to. Where strackt fits ------------------ Different bet, deliberately made. --------------------------------- A developer who wants managed servers — not an open-source platform to operate. They came to Coolify hoping someone else handled the substrate, and discovered that Coolify hands you the keys to a powerful workshop and a copy of the manual. - **Different abstraction layer.** strackt configures whole servers declaratively via NixOS. Every package, service, secret, firewall rule expressed as code, applied atomically, with rollback as a first-class operation. Different from Docker's container model — not better, not worse, optimized for a different problem (managing the entire server lifecycle, not just the application surface). - **Managed service, not a self-hosted platform.** With Coolify you operate the orchestration platform yourself, or pay Coolify Cloud to run the control plane while you still run the servers. With strackt, the management *is* the product — you don't operate the platform, we do, and we handle the servers underneath too. - **Laravel-focused at launch.** Narrower, deliberately deeper. Coolify's container-native model lets it support anything with a Dockerfile; strackt is opinionated and that opinion is Laravel for now. If your stack is Laravel, you get the depth. If it isn't, Coolify is genuinely the better fit today. - **Long-term server lifecycle is on us.** Distribution upgrades (Ubuntu LTS to LTS), fundamental service version upgrades (PHP minor versions, MySQL major versions), the slow-burning maintenance work that piles up over years — strackt does that work continuously across the server, not as Docker image rebuilds you trigger yourself. Side by side ------------ Numbers as of April 2026; verify on the official Coolify site linked next to every Coolify cell. Coolify strackt Application abstraction Docker containers Whole-server declarative (NixOS) Platform model Open-source platform; self-host it or use Coolify Cloud Managed service — strackt operates everything Configuration model Compose files, Docker primitives, per-service config Whole-system spec, atomic apply, rollback as a primitive Pricing Free (self-hosted, MIT) / Coolify Cloud from $5/mo for 2 servers ([live](https://coolify.io/pricing)) First app free; €4/app/mo after, plus your VPS Stack support today Anything Docker runs (280+ one-click services) Laravel-focused (more frameworks coming) Server access Full SSH Full SSH; manual changes get reverted to the spec Community model Open-source, active community, contributable Solo founder project, no public contributions yet Long-term server upgrades Your responsibility (distro upgrades, major service versions) Continuous (LTS-to-LTS, PHP minor, MySQL major, etc.) Disaster recovery Container redeploy / Compose replay Instant rollback (seconds) + blueprint rebuild (minutes) **Honest read.** Coolify self-hosted is free, full stop — you only pay for the VPS. That's cheaper than strackt at every scale. Coolify Cloud at $5/mo is also cheaper than strackt's per-app rate from app two onward. We're not the cheap option, and we're not trying to be. The strackt price pays for management — patching, configuration enforcement, instant rollback, distribution upgrades — that you absorb yourself with Coolify (whether self-hosted or via Cloud, where Coolify Cloud manages the control plane but not your servers). Different value swap. If you have the bandwidth to operate the platform and want it open-source, Coolify is the right pick. If you'd rather buy back the operating-the-platform hours and you're on Laravel, strackt is what we built for that. When Coolify is the right pick ------------------------------ We mean this. ------------- - You want to own the orchestration platform itself, not just rent management of it. - Docker is your application abstraction — your apps run as containers, you compose multi-container stacks, you depend on Dockerfile-driven workflows. - You're committed to open-source on principle and prefer no vendor relationship at all. - Your team has the bandwidth to operate the platform plus the servers. - You want application breadth (Node, Python, Go, multi-language stacks) that strackt doesn't ship today. Any of those — pick Coolify. We're not trying to change your mind. When strackt is the right pick ------------------------------ You wanted managed. You found a platform to manage. --------------------------------------------------- - You want managed servers, not a platform to manage. - You're on Laravel and you don't need Docker. - Long-term server lifecycle (LTS upgrades, service version upgrades, security patching) should be someone else's job. - You'd rather pay a flat rate per app than absorb the time of operating a platform. - Atomic whole-server rollback is more useful to you than redeploying containers. Why doesn't strackt use Docker? Different bet, deliberately made. strackt is built on NixOS, which lets us configure whole servers declaratively — every package, service, secret, firewall rule expressed as code, applied atomically, with rollback as a first-class operation. Docker is excellent at container portability and a great fit for a lot of teams. NixOS is a better fit for what strackt is trying to do: manage the entire server lifecycle, not just the application surface. Both abstractions are legitimate; they're optimized for different problems. We don't claim NixOS is better than Docker — we claim it's the right substrate for managed servers, which is what strackt sells. How does moving from Coolify to strackt actually work? We can't promise zero downtime — strackt doesn't control your Coolify setup, its routing, or its DNS. The path is honest and predictable: you keep your provider relationship, strackt provisions a new VPS at that provider, and we deploy your existing applications onto it (re-shaped from container workflows into Laravel-on-NixOS where applicable). You verify everything on the new machine, then cut DNS over when you're ready. The cutover is in your hands. Your old Coolify host stays exactly as it is until you decide to retire it. If your apps are heavily multi-container or non-Laravel, the migration is a bigger reshape than a port — talk to us first so we can be honest about whether it's a clean fit. Will strackt ever support Docker? No, deliberately. Adding shallow Docker support to chase a feature checkmark would dilute what strackt is — declarative whole-server configuration on NixOS — without making us competitive with platforms that are genuinely Docker-native. We'd rather do fewer things well. If your apps are Docker-first today and you want a managed platform that takes containers seriously, Coolify (or a dedicated Docker-native service) is a better fit than strackt would ever be. We say this upfront so you don't end up on a roadmap waiting list for something that isn't coming. Can I still SSH into my server? Yes — full SSH with sudo. Change anything you like. The honest part: strackt enforces the server's specification continuously. If you change something that conflicts with what we manage, the next configuration cycle puts it back. This is the feature, not a limitation — it's how we keep the server from drifting into a broken state. SSH stays open for inspection, debugging, and one-off ops; the source of truth for configuration is the spec, not whatever you typed at 2am. Who's behind strackt, and what's your support capacity? Honest answer: strackt is a solo founder project today. One developer (Jan Peter), pre-launch, building toward the first cohort. Support is async ticketing — developer-to-developer, no 24/7 phone lines. Coolify is open-source with an active community shipping the product, plus a small but real coollabs team behind Coolify Cloud. The community-and-team model genuinely beats what strackt has today on responsiveness, contributable issues, and shared knowledge. If those things matter to you, that's a real consideration. Early access is invite-based and small on purpose so the support load stays manageable while we grow into it. Different routes. Pick the one that fits. ----------------------------------------- If Coolify is what you want — open-source, Docker-native, self-hosted by you — stay there with our blessing. If you came to Coolify hoping someone else would handle the platform and the servers, and you're on Laravel, strackt is what we built for that. Same provider you'd use for Coolify, new VPS provisioned by strackt, ready to deploy your apps onto. Join the Waitlist Join You're on the list! [What to expect](/early-access) Early access opens mid-2026. Invite-based, small cohort, hands-on onboarding. Get started ----------- Your servers. Your provider. Your data. Our problem. Deploy your first app in minutes. Early access opens mid-2026. 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