# Coolify 38 Hacker News commenters recommended Coolify and 8 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 12 of 13 months. It meets the Hacker Approved badge rule. **Verdict:** Gives a Vercel-like one-click deploy experience on your own cheap VPS, such as Hetzner, for free. Common caveat: the UI can feel clunky and configuration overwhelming. ## Why people recommend it - Cheap self-hosting on your own VPS (4 comments): "My personal favorite. It's slightly more involved, but you can run it on any hardware like hetzner and save a boatload." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46914789)) "Buy a cheap VPS and use something like Coolify, Dokploy, or Dokku if you don't need a UI" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46390157)) "Coolify + Hetzner is a solid combo once you start consolidating services." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47160781)) - One-click deploys for apps and databases (4 comments): "You can deploy databases, auth providers, Git forges, a static site, anything you want with one click in a nice web UI." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49714862)) "Coolify on a Hetzner server is giving me the one click service experience" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47816741)) "Coolify (Hungary) to get a Vercel-like PaaS experience for free" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48270669)) - Polished, pleasant user experience (4 comments): "now, at least, a vastly superior website user experience" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46921473)) "Coolify has been refreshingly nice to use for me too" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47100952)) "Pretty fun, while low maintenance and great UX." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49510467)) - Easy, fun and rewarding to use (3 comments): "i am currently using coolify, and I love it" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45793655)) "It was pretty easy and really rewarding!" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46646577)) "As a happy user of coolify" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46145682)) ## What people warn about - Clunky, unpolished UI and UX (3 comments): "Coolify is full of features, but the UX suffers and they had a nasty breaking bug at one point" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47876352)) "I've recently tried Coolify but it didn't feel very polished and mostly clunky" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46153425)) "marketplace search filters straight up do nothing" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50168105)) - Reliability problems and breaking bugs (3 comments): "Coolify is full of features, but the UX suffers and they had a nasty breaking bug at one point" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47876352)) "Coolify is not known to be very reliable, especially because it's built on PHP" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46924634)) "so far it has not been exactly reliable" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46922471)) - Overwhelming configuration and setup (3 comments): "Powerful, but we found the sheer number of configuration options overwhelming." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47974045)) "Coolify since v4 it has 4 containers running to get started." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46344579)) "I used Coolify and it was so hard" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47428212)) ## Alternatives hackers recommend - [Dokploy](https://hackerapproved.com/p/dokploy.md): 19 recommend - [Stackdome](https://hackerapproved.com/p/stackdome.md): 8 recommend - [CapRover](https://hackerapproved.com/p/caprover.md): 7 recommend - [Disco](https://hackerapproved.com/p/disco.md): 7 recommend - [Tofu](https://hackerapproved.com/p/tofu.md): 7 recommend ## Cite as Hacker Approved, "Coolify", https://hackerapproved.com/p/coolify/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).