Coolify and Dokploy solve a real problem. You want Heroku's workflow, you do not want Heroku's bill, and you are comfortable with a server. Both give you a web UI that turns a Git push into a running container, both are free and open source, and both are genuinely good software.
This post is about the part the comparison articles skip: the software is free, the machine is not, and in 2026 the machine got more expensive twice. Below are the actual numbers, including the case where self-hosting still wins outright.
Disclosure: we build Miget, a managed platform, so we are one of the options being compared. We have tried to make the numbers checkable rather than flattering, and the section where self-hosting wins is there because it is true.
The three models
Self-hosted Coolify or Dokploy. You rent a VPS, install the control panel, and it deploys your apps onto that same machine. Software cost: zero. Your cost: the server, plus being the person who owns it.
Their cloud tier. Coolify Cloud is $5/month for up to two servers, then $3/month per additional server. Dokploy Cloud starts at $4.50/month per server. In both cases you are paying them to run the control plane, and you still rent and still own the servers your apps run on. This is the model people most often misread: the cloud tier is not managed hosting, it is a hosted dashboard.
A managed platform. You buy compute, the platform runs everything under it. No control panel to install, patch, or back up.
What the server actually costs
Coolify's own documentation asks for a minimum of 2 CPU cores, 2 GB of RAM and 30 GB of disk, and the production example in their docs is a 4-core machine with 8 GB of RAM and 150 GB of storage. So the realistic starting point is 4 GB, not 2.
Which Hetzner plan you compare against decides the entire argument, so it is worth using their own words. Hetzner sells cloud servers in three lines, and they segment them by how hard you intend to work the CPU:
| Line | Hetzner's own positioning |
|---|---|
| Cost-Optimized (CX, CAX) | "development and test environments, proof-of-concepts and prototypes, learning and training environments, smaller websites, or your own private blog" |
| Regular Performance (CPX) | "medium CPU usage", for "workloads that can handle variable processor performance" |
| General Purpose (CCX) | dedicated vCPUs, for "constantly high CPU usage" and high-traffic applications |
That first row is the one every "just use a €5 VPS" post quotes, and Hetzner classifies it as a plan for prototypes and private blogs. It is also hard to get hold of. At the time of writing, Hetzner's own page for the line shows CX23, CX33, CX43, CX53 and the entire CAX range as not available. Stock on these plans comes and goes by location, so this is a supply constraint rather than a discontinuation, but a price you cannot reliably order when you need it is a weak foundation for a cost argument.
So here is the comparison against the cheapest line Hetzner will actually sell you, at the same spec:
| Option | Spec | Monthly | Who runs it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hetzner CPX22 | 2 shared vCPU, 4 GB, 80 GB | €19.49 | you |
| DigitalOcean Basic | 2 shared vCPU, 4 GB, 80 GB | $24 | you |
| Miget Hobby | 2 shared vCPU, 4 GB, 80 GB | $25 | us |
Prices as of August 2026, from Hetzner's price adjustment notice, DigitalOcean's pricing page and our plans. Identical vCPU, RAM and disk on all three rows.
The four-to-one gap that self-hosting advocates quote does not survive this table. It existed against a line built for prototypes, and against an orderable production plan the three prices land within single digits of each other, in a currency-conversion band where arguing about the exact difference is not worth the effort. On DigitalOcean the gap across our whole ladder is exactly one dollar per tier: 1 GB is $6 against $7, 2 GB $12 against $13, 8 GB $48 against $49.
The word doing the work is "shared"
Every row above is still a shared-vCPU plan, ours included, and shared means something specific. In Hetzner's own words, on the CX, CPX and CAX lines "the compute resources are distributed among all instances on the same physical server," and those instances "provide a baseline CPU performance and have the option to temporarily burst CPU usage above the baseline level."
So two shared vCPUs are not two cores you own. They are a baseline share of a machine you share with strangers, plus permission to burst when your neighbours are idle. For the bursty workloads most small apps actually are, that is a fine trade and the reason these plans are affordable. For anything that holds CPU flat, a build server, a video transcoder, a busy database, a model doing inference, it is the wrong instrument, and no amount of RAM fixes it. Hetzner says as much themselves when they route "constantly high CPU usage" to a different product line.
That line is explicit about what you get: on CCX "one vCPU equals one thread of a physical CPU core." Here is the sustained-load comparison:
| Option | Spec | Monthly |
|---|---|---|
| Hetzner CCX13 | 2 dedicated vCPU, 8 GB, 80 GB | €42.99 |
| Miget Professional | 2 dedicated vCPU, 4 GB, 25 GB | $43 |
| Miget Professional | 4 dedicated vCPU, 8 GB, 50 GB | $85 |
Hetzner's entry dedicated plan went from €15.99 to €42.99 in the 15 June 2026 adjustment, roughly two and a half times in a single step.
The honest summary: cheap self-hosting was cheap because the CPU was shared and heavily so, and the tier that made it cheap is both positioned for prototypes and hard to get. At the tiers Hetzner will reliably rent you today, the hardware costs roughly what managed hosting costs, and the remaining question is who does the work.
The 2026 complication
The cheap-VPS argument rests on VPS prices staying cheap, and in 2026 they did not. Hetzner raised cloud server prices on 1 April and again on 15 June. Their stated reason was operating costs and hardware procurement, specifically DRAM prices rising 171% year over year as AI training and inference clusters absorb the world's memory supply.
That is worth sitting with, because it is structural rather than a one-off. The same demand that makes AI infrastructure expensive makes the RAM in your cheap VPS expensive. Nobody sensible is forecasting where this lands, but a plan whose entire economic case is "the server is nearly free" now carries a risk it did not carry eighteen months ago.
The cost nobody puts in the table
The control panel is not free of resources. Coolify asks for 2 GB of RAM as a minimum, and that minimum is for Coolify plus your applications sharing one machine. On a 4 GB box, a meaningful share of your memory is running the thing that runs your things before a single app starts.
This is the difference that does not show up in a price comparison but shows up in a free -m. On a managed platform, the plan you buy is the plan your applications get, because the control plane runs somewhere else on someone else's budget.
The same applies to databases. With Coolify or Dokploy, Postgres is a container on your box, sharing its RAM and its disk, and backed up if and only if you set that up and tested a restore. That is entirely doable. It is also the thing people mean when they say self-hosting is free: free of invoices, not free of work.
Where self-hosting genuinely wins
Being honest about this is more useful than a sales pitch, so:
You already run servers. If patching a host and reading journalctl are things you do anyway, the marginal cost of one more box is small and Coolify is excellent on it.
You want everything on one machine. Coolify and Dokploy are built around that, and there is real elegance in one server you fully understand.
You can get a Cost-Optimized box and your workload is bursty. When those plans are in stock they are genuinely cheap, and Hetzner's own description of them, prototypes and small sites, is exactly the case where self-hosting wins outright. On a project that can be down for an afternoon and idles between requests, paying $25 for managed hosting would be silly.
You want no dependency on a vendor at all. Both are open source. Nobody can change their pricing on you, and nobody can shut down.
Where it stops making sense
When the server dying means the control plane dies too. Your apps and the thing that deploys your apps are on the same machine. Recovering means rebuilding the panel before you can redeploy anything.
When your time has a price. At DigitalOcean rates the gap is a dollar. One recovered evening a year pays for a decade of it.
When you need a real database story. HA with automatic failover, point-in-time recovery, and an external replica are work you take on personally with a self-hosted panel.
When you are paying twice anyway. Coolify Cloud at $5 plus a Hetzner box is roughly $11/month for a hosted dashboard on a machine you still administer. At that point compare against a fully managed $13 plan rather than against zero.
Frequently asked questions
Is Coolify really free?
Yes, self-hosted Coolify is free with no feature restrictions. Coolify Cloud is $5/month for up to two servers, plus $3/month for each additional one, and that fee covers the hosted control panel only. You still pay separately for every server your applications run on.
What is the difference between Coolify and Dokploy?
Both are open-source, self-hostable panels that deploy Docker workloads from Git with a web UI. Coolify is the larger and more established project; Dokploy is younger, built around Docker Swarm, and its cloud tier starts at $4.50/month per server against Coolify Cloud's $5 for two. For most single-server users the decision comes down to which interface you prefer, not to capability.
What are the minimum server requirements for Coolify?
Coolify's documentation specifies 2 CPU cores, 2 GB of RAM and 30 GB of disk as a minimum, with a 4-core, 8 GB, 150 GB machine given as a production example. Remember that this budget covers Coolify and your applications together, not Coolify alone.
Is a managed PaaS worth it if a VPS is cheaper?
It depends on which VPS and on what your workload does. Against Hetzner's Cost-Optimized line, when you can get one, managed hosting costs several times more and self-hosting wins on price alone. Against the cheapest line they reliably stock, CPX22 at €19.49 for 2 shared vCPU and 4 GB, the gap is single digits. Against DigitalOcean it is one dollar a month across the whole ladder. And against dedicated CPU it narrows further still, because Hetzner's entry dedicated plan is now €42.99 after a two-and-a-half-fold increase in June 2026.
Does a cheap Hetzner server really give me two CPU cores?
No, and this is the most common misreading of cheap VPS pricing. Hetzner's documentation describes shared plans as distributing compute across all instances on the same physical machine, giving each a baseline level of performance with the ability to burst temporarily above it. Two shared vCPUs means a baseline share plus headroom when neighbours are idle, not two cores reserved for you. Their dedicated CCX line is where one vCPU equals one physical thread, and it starts at EUR 42.99.
Can I move off a managed platform later?
You should check before committing to any of them. Our stacks are plain Docker Compose files that run with docker compose up on any machine, including one running Coolify, and the catalogue is public. Portability is worth verifying rather than assuming, in both directions.
The short version
If you are on a Hetzner shared plan, your apps idle between requests, and you enjoy running a server, self-host Coolify. The economics are on your side and the software is good.
If your workload holds the CPU flat, price it against dedicated vCPU on both sides before deciding. That is a different comparison and it does not favour self-hosting nearly as much.
If your reference price is DigitalOcean, the cost argument for self-hosting is a rounding error, and you are really deciding whether you want to be the person who owns the box. If the answer is no, a managed plan starts at $5/month and the whole thing is somebody else's pager.