Coolify vs Kamal for Solo Developers

Quick Comparison

Coolify Overview

Coolify turns any VPS into a full platform-as-a-service. Install it with one command, open the web dashboard, and start deploying applications from Git repositories. It handles Docker builds, reverse proxying with Traefik, SSL certificates via Let's Encrypt, and environment variable management. All through a clean browser interface.

Beyond application deployments, Coolify manages infrastructure services. Need PostgreSQL? Click a button. Redis? Another click. Want to run Plausible Analytics, Minio, or Grafana? Coolify has one-click templates for over 100 services. Each gets its own domain, SSL, and health monitoring.

The dashboard shows deployment logs, resource usage, and application status in real time. For solo developers running multiple projects, Coolify provides a single pane of glass to manage everything. I've seen people run 5-10 apps plus supporting services on a single $5/month VPS using Coolify, which would cost $50-100/month on a managed PaaS.

Kamal Overview

Kamal is the deployment tool from the Rails team. It takes a different approach: no web interface, no dashboard, no service marketplace. Instead, you define your deployment in a deploy.yml file and run kamal deploy from your terminal. Kamal builds your Docker image, pushes it to a registry, SSHs into your server, pulls the new image, and does a zero-downtime switch using Traefik.

The beauty of Kamal is its simplicity and transparency. The entire deployment configuration lives in one YAML file in your repository. You can read it, understand it, version control it, and review changes in pull requests. There's no black box. When something goes wrong, kamal logs and kamal app details tell you exactly what's happening.

Kamal also supports "accessories" for things like databases and Redis, deploying them as Docker containers alongside your main application. It handles multi-server deployments too, letting you deploy to multiple machines with one command.

Key Differences

Interface philosophy. Coolify is GUI-first. You do everything through a web dashboard: create projects, configure deployments, manage services, view logs. Kamal is CLI-first. You do everything through terminal commands and YAML files. This isn't just a preference issue. It shapes how you think about deployments.

Service management. Coolify excels at running many services. Its one-click marketplace lets you spin up databases, monitoring tools, and applications with minimal effort. Kamal can deploy accessories (databases, Redis), but adding new services requires editing YAML and understanding Docker. For a solo developer running a complex stack, Coolify's UI is faster.

Deployment transparency. Kamal's configuration-as-code approach means everything is explicit and reviewable. You know exactly what will happen because it's written in the YAML file. Coolify abstracts many decisions behind its UI, which is convenient until something breaks and you need to debug a configuration you didn't manually create.

Zero-downtime deploys. Both tools support zero-downtime deployments using Traefik. Kamal's implementation is battle-tested at Basecamp's scale. Coolify's implementation works well for typical applications. For most solo developers, both are reliable enough.

Multi-app management. If you run one or two applications, both tools work fine. If you run 5+ applications with associated databases, caches, and monitoring tools, Coolify's dashboard becomes significantly more manageable than editing multiple Kamal configuration files.

Community and ecosystem. Kamal has the Rails community and DHH's backing. Coolify has a growing open-source community with active development. Both are actively maintained and improving rapidly.

When to Choose Coolify

• You prefer a visual dashboard for managing deployments and services
• You run multiple applications and need a central management interface
• You want one-click deployment of databases, monitoring, and other services
• You don't want to write YAML deployment configurations
• You want to see all your projects, their status, and logs in one place

When to Choose Kamal

• You prefer terminal-based workflows and configuration as code
• You want your deployment config version-controlled alongside your application
• You're deploying a Rails application (Kamal integrates seamlessly)
• You want maximum transparency in what your deployment tool does
• You deploy to multiple servers and want one consistent process

The Verdict

For solo developers managing multiple projects, Coolify is the more practical choice. The web dashboard, one-click services, and visual management save time that compounds across projects. When you're running a SaaS, a blog, a database, Redis, and maybe a monitoring tool, clicking through Coolify's interface is faster than maintaining separate Kamal configs.

For solo developers focused on one main application who prefer CLI workflows, Kamal is cleaner. The config-as-code approach is elegant, the deployment process is transparent, and the Rails ecosystem integration is seamless. If you're a "terminal person" who finds web UIs slower than typing commands, Kamal fits your workflow better.

My suggestion: if you're not sure, start with Coolify. The visual interface has a gentler learning curve, and you can always move to Kamal later if you find yourself wanting more control. Both are free, both work well, and both beat paying for a managed PaaS.