---
title: "Coolify Cloud vs Dokploy Cloud in 2026: pricing, what they manage, and fully managed alternatives | Pethost"
description: "Coolify Cloud ($5 a month) and Dokploy Cloud ($4.50 a server) host only the panel: the server stays yours. Pethost looks after the machine too: €9.99 a month."
---

[Blog](https://pethost.dev/blog/) · Hosting comparisons

# Coolify Cloud vs Dokploy Cloud in 2026: pricing, what they manage, and fully managed alternatives

By the Pethost team · 29 September 2026 · Updated 5 October 2026 · 10 min read

You like what Coolify or Dokploy does and would rather not maintain a server, so you ask whether Coolify Cloud or Dokploy Cloud is the managed version. Neither is: “Cloud” there is the panel, hosted for you, at $5 a month on Coolify Cloud and $4.50 a server on Dokploy Cloud. The server is still yours to rent, update, secure and back up. On Pethost the machine is looked after too: 2 vCPU, 3 GB and 30 GB with the panel, backups and logs for €9.99 a month.

**In short**

- **Both host the panel only.** Coolify Cloud is $5 a month with two servers connected, Dokploy Cloud $4.50 a server. The server's rent, updates, firewall and backup storage stay yours.
- **The whole bill:** a 2 vCPU, 4 GB server that can be ordered at Hetzner today is €19.99 a month. The panel's $4.50 or $5 and a bucket for backups come on top.
- **Fully managed means one of two things:** a platform that hides the machine and prices every service (3 GB of always-on memory is $20.10 to $39.00 a month on Fly.io, Railway, Sevalla, Northflank and Render), or a machine of your own that someone else looks after.
- **Pethost is the second kind, and the best value here:** 2 vCPU, 3 GB and 30 GB for €9.99 a month, with the panel, the updates, nightly backups and 30 days of request logs in the price.

## Coolify Cloud and Dokploy Cloud: what is managed, and do I still need my own server?

Yes, with both. Coolify's documentation: “Coolify Cloud manages the control plane, not the servers and workloads you connect to it.” Dokploy's: “Your applications still run on your own servers, but the management dashboard is maintained by us.”

What you stop doing is running the panel. Self-hosted, you install, maintain and restore it, and it takes its share of the server: Coolify “needs 2 CPU cores, 2 GB RAM, and 10 GB disk space to run”. On Cloud that is the vendor's work: Coolify keeps its panel “hosted, updated, maintained, and backed up”. That changes one column of five:

**Who does what, October 2026**

| Host | The panel's updates | The server's rent | Operating system updates | Firewall and security | Backup storage |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Pethost | Pethost | In the price: 2 vCPU, 3 GB, 30 GB | Pethost: security updates install themselves | Pethost | In the price: off the machine, 14 nights |
| Coolify Cloud | Coolify | You | You: “Coolify does not install updates automatically” | You | You: an S3-compatible bucket |
| Dokploy Cloud | Dokploy | You | You | You | You: an S3 destination |
| Coolify or Dokploy, self-hosted | You | You | You | You | You |

A cloud panel is made for someone who already runs servers and wants the panel kept up.

## Coolify Cloud pricing and Dokploy Cloud pricing in 2026: per server, bring your own server

### Coolify Cloud: $5 a month with two servers

Coolify Cloud is “$5 /month base price (connect 2 servers)” and “+ $3 /month per additional server”, 20% off when paid annually. It includes email alerts and “Community + limited email support”.

### Dokploy Cloud: $4.50 a server for a managed control plane

Dokploy Cloud's Hobby plan is “$ 4.50 /mo per server”, with one user, one volume backup per application and one backup per database. Startup is from $15 a month with three servers, unlimited users and backups, and $4.50 for each further server. Yearly billing is 20% off, and a 7-day trial asks for no card.

**The panel's price a month by servers connected: our sums, no server in them**

| Servers | Coolify Cloud | Dokploy Cloud Hobby | Dokploy Cloud Startup |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | $5.00 | $4.50 | $15.00 |
| 2 | $5.00 | $9.00 | $15.00 |
| 3 | $8.00 | $13.50 | $15.00 |
| 5 | $14.00 | $22.50 | $24.00 |

Between the two panels, Coolify Cloud's bill is the smaller from the second server on, and Dokploy's Hobby limits end at Startup's $15. Self-hosted, both are free of charge, and the panel is then yours to run as well as the server.

## What if I just rent a VPS? The server a cloud panel leaves to you

With a cloud panel you have to. Coolify's pricing page: “You need to bring your own servers from any cloud provider (such as Hetzner, DigitalOcean, AWS, etc.)”. Two things first.

**A server is not sure to cost what the guides say.** Hetzner is the server guides and assistants name first, at prices it no longer has. It raised them on 1 April and again on 15 June 2026. Its cheap Cost-Optimized range has long been out of stock. Those servers are hardware it bought at good prices, before the RAM shortage, and on 5 October 2026 every plan of the range is marked “not available” on Hetzner's own page, which says “the number of available servers is limited”. The 2 vCPU, 4 GB server without that mark, CPX22, is €19.49 a month: it was €7.99 before 15 June.

**A 2 vCPU, 4 GB server that can be ordered on 5 October 2026, and the panel on top, a month**

| Server | Rent | With the provider's backups | Rent and Coolify Cloud | Rent and Dokploy Cloud |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Hetzner CPX22 with an IPv4 | €19.99 | €23.89 | €19.99 and $5.00 | €19.99 and $4.50 |
| DigitalOcean Droplet, 2 vCPU, 4 GiB | $24.00 | $31.20, daily | $29.00 | $28.50 |

The panel's own backups want an S3-compatible bucket as well, and the hours are yours. Pethost Starter is €9.99 a month with all of it done.

**An agent meets the server as root.** Both panels have [an official MCP server](https://pethost.dev/blog/hosting-with-mcp-server/): Coolify's has 45 tools by our count, three of which change anything, and Dokploy's mirrors its API in “508 tools across 49 categories”. For the server itself, its operating system and its firewall, an agent has what you have: SSH as root. Nothing tells it what runs there, and a wrong command takes down the proxy, a database or the firewall. On Pethost an agent works through 13 tools that each do one clear thing, and its shell is inside a project's containers, never on the machine.

## Coolify Cloud vs Dokploy Cloud: Docker Compose, managed volume backups and logs

Each cloud panel is [its self-hosted edition](https://pethost.dev/blog/coolify-vs-dokploy-vs-caprover-vs-dokku/), run by the vendor. For a Compose project with a volume:

**A Docker Compose project on each, October 2026**

| Host | The compose.yaml | Volume and database backups | Request logs |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Pethost | Runs it as written, or refuses it and says what to write | Every night, databases too: encrypted, off the machine, kept 14 days | Every request, kept 30 days |
| Coolify Cloud | Runs it on your server: parsed and added to, or untouched in Raw Compose mode | Scheduled, volumes since v4.3.0 of August 2026: on the same server until you add a bucket | None found in its documentation |
| Dokploy Cloud | Runs it on your server with `docker compose`, adding Traefik labels | To an S3 destination you set up; on Hobby one per application and per database | A Requests screen; how long it keeps them was not found |

Coolify lists “a tested backup and restore strategy” among what you manage on Cloud too. On Pethost a restore is a tool your agent has:

Claude Code

**You say:** This morning's migration broke the shop's database. Put last night's data back.

- GetProject shop: volume pgdata, 14 snapshots
- RunProjectAction restore_snapshot: pgdata, backed up first
- GetOperation succeeded

**The agent answers:** Restored: pgdata holds last night's data, and the shop is running.

## Fully managed Coolify alternatives in 2026: Railway, Render, Fly.io, Northflank, Sevalla, or a machine of your own

“Something like Coolify, but fully managed” can mean two things; [Coolify alternatives](https://pethost.dev/blog/coolify-alternatives/) and [Dokploy alternatives](https://pethost.dev/blog/dokploy-alternatives/) go through both.

### A platform that hides the machine

On Railway, Render, Fly.io, Northflank and Sevalla there is no server to see. Each service you deploy has its own price: $7 a month for 512 MB on Render, $10 a GB of memory and $20 a vCPU on Railway ([Railway vs Render vs Fly.io pricing](https://pethost.dev/blog/railway-vs-render-vs-fly-io-pricing/) has every plan). They are built for an application that outgrows one machine: more copies of a service, several regions, a managed database with replicas.

### A machine of your own that someone else looks after

This keeps Coolify's model: one price for the machine, as many containers as fit. Elestio runs your pipelines on a VM it keeps patched: 2 vCPU and 4 GB are $16.06 a month at Netcup, $19.71 at Hetzner. Sliplane charges a flat price per server: €28.80 for 3 vCPU and 4 GB. Pethost Starter is 2 vCPU, 3 GB and 30 GB for €9.99, and [runs a Compose project as written](https://pethost.dev/blog/managed-docker-compose-hosting/).

**3 GB of always-on memory a month, at each host's own plan prices. Bars compare at €1 = $1.1204, the ECB's reference rate of 5 October 2026**

| Host | Price a month |
| --- | --- |
| Pethost Starter | €9.99 |
| Elestio | $16.06 |
| Fly.io | $20.10 |
| Railway | $30.00 |
| Sevalla | $30.00 |
| Sliplane | €28.80 |
| Northflank | $32.40 |
| Render | $39.00 |

Railway's figure is memory alone, before CPU, disk and traffic. Fly.io's is three 1 GB Machines in Ashburn ($23.19 in Frankfurt), before volumes. Sliplane's and Elestio's are 4 GB servers, their first that hold 3 GB. Pethost's has the disk, the traffic, the backups and the logs inside.

Three small apps, a bot and a Postgres, about 2.5 GB, are €9.99 a month on Pethost, $19.71 on Elestio, $23.15 on Railway counting memory only, $25.05 to $27.75 on Northflank, €28.80 on Sliplane, $34.75 on Render, $46.00 on Sevalla, and on Fly.io $17.30 with a Postgres you run yourself or $53.24 with its managed one. Postgres on Pethost is a container in your project, in the nightly backup: not a managed database with replicas or point-in-time recovery.

**The panel is ours to keep up, and so is the machine under it.** Six projects on one Starter machine.

![The Pethost panel's first page: the machine's CPU, memory and disk, and six projects as cards, each with its name, its address, its requests of the last day and its services.](https://pethost.dev/shots/projects.webp)

## What €9.99 a month buys: the server, the panel and the upkeep

With a cloud panel the bill is a server at €19.99 a month, the panel at $4.50 or $5 and a bucket for backups, and the operating system updates, the firewall and a tested restore are your evenings. On Starter, for €9.99 a month without VAT:

- **2 vCPU, 3 GB, 30 GB** a machine of your own, all of it your projects'
- **14 nights** of encrypted backups, off the machine
- **30 days** of request logs
- **13** MCP tools for your agent

Also in the price: the panel, an HTTPS address for every project, a deploy on every push to GitHub, SSH into any container, and security updates that install themselves. Nothing is metered or billed on top.

That is the best value we found for someone who likes what Coolify does and not the server under it: 3 GB of always-on memory for €9.99, where the seven other hosts in the chart ask from $16.06 to $39.00, with the upkeep a cloud panel leaves to you done. [Grow](https://pethost.dev/#pricing), a machine twice the size, is €17.99. There is no free tier: €9.99 rents a real machine.

## Who Pethost is for

### Pethost is the best pick for

- **Developers who like Coolify or Dokploy and are tired of looking after a server**: the panel, the machine and its updates are ours
- **Solo developers with several side projects**: as many as fit on one machine, on one bill of €9.99
- **People who build with Claude Code, Codex or Cursor** and want the agent to deploy, read logs and restore a backup
- **Early startups** that want one fixed bill for everything they run

### Look elsewhere if

- Your application needs several servers or regions, autoscaling, or hardware you own: here one rented machine is the limit

## Questions

### Is Coolify Cloud fully managed, or do I still need my own server?

You still need your own server. Coolify Cloud hosts the panel for $5 a month with two servers connected: it “manages the control plane, not the servers and workloads you connect to it”. A 2 vCPU, 4 GB Hetzner server that can be ordered today adds €19.99 a month, and its upkeep stays yours. On Pethost the machine and its upkeep are in the €9.99.

### How much is Dokploy Cloud per server in 2026?

$4.50 a server a month on Hobby, with one user, one volume backup per application and one backup per database; Startup is from $15 a month with three servers. It is a managed control plane: the servers are yours to bring and to look after.

### Do Coolify Cloud and Dokploy Cloud back up Docker Compose volumes?

Both can, to storage you bring: Coolify on the same server until you add an S3-compatible bucket, Dokploy to an S3 destination, one volume backup per application on Hobby. On Pethost the nightly backup of every project's volumes is in the €9.99: off the machine, kept 14 days.

### Is there something like Coolify, but fully managed, so that I don't maintain the server myself?

Yes, of two kinds. Railway, Render, Fly.io, Northflank and Sevalla hide the machine and price each service: 3 GB of always-on memory is $20.10 to $39.00 a month there. Pethost keeps Coolify's model, a machine of your own with as many containers as fit, and looks after it: 2 vCPU, 3 GB and 30 GB for €9.99 a month, with the panel, security updates, nightly backups and request logs included.

Read from each vendor's own pricing page and documentation on 5 October 2026. Prices are in each vendor's currency, ours without VAT; sums over several servers or instances are ours.

1. [Coolify: pricing](https://coolify.io/pricing)
2. [Coolify: self-hosted and Cloud](https://coolify.io/docs/core/selfhosted-cloud-comparison)
3. [Coolify: server patching](https://coolify.io/docs/core/infrastructure/servers/server-patching)
4. [Coolify: installation](https://coolify.io/docs/get-started/installation)
5. [Coolify: Docker Compose](https://coolify.io/docs/knowledge-base/docker/compose)
6. [Coolify: volume backups](https://coolify.io/docs/core/persistent-storage/storage-mounts/backups)
7. [Coolify: database backups](https://coolify.io/docs/databases/backups)
8. [Coolify: MCP capabilities](https://coolify.io/docs/mcp/capabilities/overview)
9. [Coolify: changelog](https://coolify.io/changelog)
10. [Coolify: documentation index](https://coolify.io/docs/llms.txt)
11. [Dokploy: pricing](https://dokploy.com/pricing)
12. [Dokploy: Cloud](https://docs.dokploy.com/docs/core/cloud)
13. [Dokploy: Cloud and self-hosted](https://docs.dokploy.com/docs/core/differences)
14. [Dokploy: Compose domains](https://docs.dokploy.com/docs/core/docker-compose/domains)
15. [Dokploy: volume backups](https://docs.dokploy.com/docs/core/volume-backups)
16. [Dokploy: backups](https://docs.dokploy.com/docs/core/backups)
17. [Dokploy: documentation](https://docs.dokploy.com/llms-full.txt)
18. [Dokploy: MCP server](https://github.com/Dokploy/mcp)
19. [Hetzner: Cost-Optimized plans](https://www.hetzner.com/cloud/cost-optimized)
20. [Hetzner: Regular Performance plans](https://www.hetzner.com/cloud/regular-performance)
21. [Hetzner: price adjustment of 1 April](https://www.hetzner.com/pressroom/statement-price-adjustment/)
22. [Hetzner: price adjustment of 15 June](https://docs.hetzner.com/general/infrastructure-and-availability/price-adjustment/)
23. [DigitalOcean: Droplets](https://www.digitalocean.com/pricing/droplets)
24. [Railway: pricing](https://railway.com/pricing)
25. [Render: pricing](https://render.com/pricing)
26. [Fly.io: pricing](https://docs.fly.io/about/pricing)
27. [Northflank: pricing](https://northflank.com/pricing)
28. [Sevalla: pricing](https://sevalla.com/application-hosting/pricing/)
29. [Elestio: pricing](https://elest.io/pricing)
30. [Sliplane: pricing](https://sliplane.io/pricing)

## Put your projects online today

A machine of your own, as many projects as fit, one flat price. Nothing metered, nothing billed on top.

[Host all your projects for €9.99/mo](https://console.pethost.dev/)

## Keep reading

- 23 September 2026 [PaaS isolation in 2026: shared containers, microVMs, or a virtual machine of your own](https://pethost.dev/blog/paas-on-your-own-vm/) Render and Heroku run apps in shared-kernel containers, Fly.io and Koyeb in microVMs. Pethost rents you a virtual machine of your own for €9.99 a month.
- 19 September 2026 [Coolify vs Dokploy vs CapRover vs Dokku vs Kamal in 2026: self-hosted PaaS compared](https://pethost.dev/blog/coolify-vs-dokploy-vs-caprover-vs-dokku/) Coolify, Dokploy, CapRover, Dokku and Kamal compared for 2026: free software on a server you keep. Pethost is that machine, looked after, for €9.99 a month.
- 15 September 2026 [Managed Docker Compose hosting in 2026: who deploys a compose.yaml with HTTPS, backups and logs](https://pethost.dev/blog/managed-docker-compose-hosting/) Most managed hosts convert a Docker Compose file or want their own format. Two run a compose.yaml as written: Pethost, from €9.99 a month, and Elestio.
- 6 October 2026 [Best Railway alternatives in 2026: predictable pricing and self-hosted options](https://pethost.dev/blog/railway-alternatives/) The best Railway alternatives in 2026 are platforms priced per service, self-hosted Coolify and Dokploy, and Pethost: a flat €9.99 a month for 3 GB.

[All articles](https://pethost.dev/blog/) · [About Pethost](https://pethost.dev/about/) · [Pricing](https://pethost.dev/#pricing)

Pethost · Stephan Gomer · NIP 1133096755

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