Cloudron
| License | FOSS problems | Maintenance | SSO | Users | Tested |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cloudron LicenseSource available license. Frontend and backend source published and developed in the open, but production use beyond a small free tier requires a paid subscription. App packages themselves are separately MIT-licensed. | Core platform source-available, not open source; app packages are separately MIT | Active | ✅ | Paid tiers | ❌ |
Description
Cloudron is a managed self-hosting platform — one-click installs from a 100+ app catalogue, built-in SSO, user management, SSL, and automatic updates, wrapped in a more polished interface than YunoHost's. A separate VPS is still required underneath it; Cloudron manages what runs on top, not the box itself.
Features
- App catalogue — 100+ apps (Nextcloud, GitLab, WordPress, Discourse, Bitwarden, and more), each pre-packaged and pre-configured for one-click install.
- Built-in SSO & user management — one login across every installed app, managed centrally rather than per-service.
- Automatic updates & backups — both apps and the platform itself update automatically; scheduled backups are built in rather than a separate tool to configure.
- Polished admin UI — the most refined interface of the self-hosting platforms in this catalog, at the cost of the flexibility Coolify or an arbitrary Docker Compose setup offers.
Usage patterns
- Non-technical operators — the lowest technical floor in this catalog; whoever actually runs it day to day isn't assumed to know Docker.
- Catalogue apps only — an app must be packaged for Cloudron specifically to run on it; deploying an arbitrary Compose file the way Coolify does isn't the model here.
License and governance
Changed from AGPLv3 to a proprietary license in 2019. The Cloudron License keeps the platform's own frontend/backend source published at git.cloudron.io for inspection, but production use beyond the free tier's 2 apps and 2 users needs an active paid subscription — from $15/month (Hobbyist: unlimited apps, 5 users) up to $90/month (Premium: enterprise features). Source-available, not open source — though the 100+ app packages that actually run on it are a separate matter, all MIT-licensed. Single company, not a foundation, the same single-vendor shape flagged elsewhere in this catalog — but without a permissive license's protection: if Cloudron folded, what's already released wouldn't stay freely usable and modifiable the way an Apache/MIT-licensed tool's would.
Conclusion
Why you would — the most polished, lowest-effort self-hosting platform in this catalog. Automatic app/platform updates and built-in backups mean less ongoing operational attention than Coolify or YunoHost ask for.
Why you wouldn't — not open source, and production use beyond two apps means an ongoing subscription — real recurring cost and vendor dependency for a project built around avoiding both. Locked to Cloudron's own app catalogue rather than arbitrary Compose setups.