Kamal
Hacker ApprovedShares rank 4 of 19 deployment tools by recommenders
Free tool for deploying Docker containers to your own servers with no-downtime deploys. Most common caveat: the build and config setup, including secrets, takes time to get running.
Free tool for deploying Docker containers to your own servers with no-downtime deploys. Most common caveat: the build and config setup, including secrets, takes time to get running.
24 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 21
- criticize it
- 3
- approval share
- 88%
Recommended in 9 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it carries the badge
- 21 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 7 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 9 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Used by Basecamp and 37signals
“the build system that 37signals / Basecamp / DHH developed, specifically to move off the cloud”
Comment from 20 Dec 2025 in “Go ahead, self-host Postgres” “at first only used by 36signals and now used by them and me”
Comment from 14 Jan 2026 in “I Love You, Redis, but I'm Leaving You for SolidQueue” “Basecamp is running successfully with Kamal”
Comment from 27 Apr 2026 in “Dear friend, you have built a Kubernetes (2024)” Handles deployments well, no downtime
“You can do no-downtime deploy of a web service with:”
Comment from 13 Nov 2025 in “Helm 4.0” “used Kamal to deploy the app with docker”
Comment from 23 Apr 2026 in “I Am Building a Cloud” “it handles deployments very well”
Comment from 15 Jun 2026 in “What job interviews taught me about Kubernetes” Stable, reliable infrastructure
“things have never been more stable and reliable from an infrastructure point of view”
Comment from 23 Apr 2026 in “I Am Building a Cloud” “Kamal in Rails world is a neat middleground for some extra robustness”
Comment from 15 Feb 2026 in “One Server. Small Business” Complex setups up quickly
“Kamal really kicks ass, and you can have a pretty complicated infrastructure up in no time.”
Comment from 23 Apr 2026 in “I Am Building a Cloud” “Kamal + cloudflare tunnel is a neat setup.”
Comment from 18 Nov 2025 in “Do not put your site behind Cloudflare if you don't need to”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Too restrictive for some infrastructure
“not all our infrastructure is deployed with Kamal”
Comment from 23 Apr 2026 in “I Am Building a Cloud” “Kamal was too restrictive”
Comment from 26 Apr 2026 in “Dear friend, you have built a Kubernetes (2024)”
Other deployment tools people recommend
The four most recommended other deployment tools, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
See all 19 deployment tools, rankedWhat people said
21 of the 25 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“I ship plenty of services to my tiny $5/mo vps with it without having to pay for a docker registry.”
“it handles deployments very well”
“AWS ECS, GCP Cloud Run, Kamal are all modern options here.”
“Brilliant for deployment, but we wanted integrated database management and other platform features built-in.”
“Basecamp is running successfully with Kamal”
“Kamal was too restrictive”
“used Kamal to deploy the app with docker”
“not all our infrastructure is deployed with Kamal”
“Kamal really kicks ass, and you can have a pretty complicated infrastructure up in no time.”
“things have never been more stable and reliable from an infrastructure point of view”
“11 pushes in 2h caused overlapping Kamal deploys with concurrent SQLite access.”
“kamal being the worst offender”
“Kamal in Rails world is a neat middleground for some extra robustness”
“you have to take care of keeping the underlying os patched etc.”
“I deploy at my leisure with stuff like Dokku, or Kamal”
“at first only used by 36signals and now used by them and me”
“the build process and config file which is mandatory and also secrets management is time consuming to get up and running.”
“the build system that 37signals / Basecamp / DHH developed, specifically to move off the cloud”
“it's backed by a company that actually fully moved out of K8s and cloud”
“Kamal + cloudflare tunnel is a neat setup.”
“You can do no-downtime deploy of a web service with:”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.