Coolify vs gitea
Is it time to switch? We break down the differences so you can stop bleeding money.
Choose Coolify.
If you want to own your data, save money, and avoid vendor lock-in, Coolify is more popular among developers.
What Actually Matters
No fluff — just the differences that affect your decision
Both open source, different licenses: Coolify uses Apache-2.0, gitea uses MIT. Check the fine print if you're building commercial.
Both can run on your own metal with Docker. Full data ownership, no cloud dependency. We have deploy guides for each.
Coolify (63.0k★) and gitea (58.5k★) — both well-established. Neither is going anywhere.
Coolify is built in PHP, gitea in Go. Matters if you want to contribute, extend, or debug internals.
Try both — most offer free tiers. The right pick depends on your stack size, team, and tolerance for DevOps.
Coolify
An open-source, self-hostable PaaS alternative to Vercel, Heroku & Netlify that lets you easily deploy static sites, databases, full-stack applications and 280+ one-click services on your own servers.
Why Choose Coolify
- ✓Polished, beautiful dashboard that rivals Vercel and Netlify
- ✓Deploy anything — Docker, static sites, databases, services
- ✓Automatic SSL, backups, and monitoring included
Drawbacks
- ×One-man project (mostly)
gitea
Self-hosted Git service with code review, team collaboration, package registry, and CI/CD, written in Go. Provides a lightweight, all-in-one software development platform.
Why Choose gitea
- ✓Built with Go — lightweight and highly performant
- ✓Single binary — easy to deploy and manage
- ✓Supports code review, team collaboration, and CI/CD — all-in-one platform
Drawbacks
- ×Self-hosting can be complex
- ×Smaller ecosystem compared to GitHub or GitLab
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