Compare / Portainer vs Dockge
Portainer vs Dockge
Pick Dockge if you want a small MIT Compose-stack UI (Uptime Kuma's sibling). Pick Portainer CE if you want a broader Docker/Swarm/K8s UI under zlib — and read the CE vs Business Edition split.
Facts checked 18 Oct 2026. License, language, and GitHub activity come from the catalog or the project's own repo. "Not in the catalog row" means the public catalog dump does not store that number.
Portainer in the catalog Dockge in the catalogStart on Railway
How they compare
| Portainer | Dockge | |
|---|---|---|
| License | zlib (portainer/portainer) source | MIT (louislam/dockge) source |
| Language | TypeScript (catalog) | TypeScript (catalog) |
| GitHub activity | 38,681 stars in the catalog source | 24,636 stars in the catalog source |
| Self-host | CE UI for Docker/Swarm/K8s/Podman. BE is commercial. | Compose stacks in a simple UI. One job. |
| Best for | A general container control plane. | compose.yaml stacks without Portainer BE. |
Self-hosting and resource needs
Both want a Docker socket. Dockge is compose.yaml-oriented (louislam/dockge, MIT). Portainer Community Edition is zlib (portainer/portainer LICENSE). Portainer's README presents CE as the homelab/learning build and Business Edition as the production product (RBAC, GitOps, SSO). A 2021 maintainer comment said the CE license itself has no use-purpose restriction — the zlib text permits commercial use. Do not confuse CE with BE.
FAQ
- Is Portainer CE open source?
- The zlib LICENSE on portainer/portainer is OSI-listed. Business Edition is a separate commercial product.
- Is this Coolify?
- Coolify/Dokploy deploy apps from git (/compare/coolify-vs-dokploy). This pair is a Docker UI on a host you already run.
- Can I run Dockge in production?
- MIT says you may. The project is a homelab Compose UI. Do not invent an SLA.
- How do I deploy it?
- Mount the Docker socket as each project documents. Coolify remains /stacks/coolify-paas if you wanted a PaaS.
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