A Coolify alternative without servers to run.
Coolify is an open-source platform you install on your own servers: a Heroku-style dashboard that builds and runs your apps and databases in Docker, on any machine it can reach over SSH. Brewless also deploys into accounts you own, but there are no servers: your Laravel app runs in serverless containers on Scaleway, behind bunny.net.
Facts checked on 20 October 2026. See the sources.
Coolify and Brewless at a glance
| Topic | Coolify | Brewless |
|---|---|---|
| Company | coolLabs Solutions Kft., Hungary. Open source under the Apache 2.0 licence. | Coding Agency, Meppel, the Netherlands. |
| How your app runs | Docker containers on servers you connect over SSH, built with Nixpacks, a Dockerfile or Docker Compose, with a proxy for domains and HTTPS. | Serverless containers: your app starts with traffic and stops when it is quiet. There are no servers to manage. |
| Whose account | Yours: your own servers, also with Coolify Cloud, which hosts only the dashboard. | Yours: your own Scaleway project and bunny.net account. Brewless is the control plane and is not in the path of your visitors. |
| Infrastructure | Any Linux server: a VPS, a dedicated server or a machine at home. Hetzner and DigitalOcean are named as examples. | Scaleway (France) for your app, bunny.net (Slovenia) for the edge in front of it. Both European companies. |
| Regions in Europe | Wherever your servers are. The Coolify Cloud dashboard runs on Hetzner in Germany. | Paris, Amsterdam, Warsaw and Milan. |
| Scales to zero | Not listed in its documentation; scaling out goes through a load balancer you run yourself. | Yes, when you set the minimum to zero. |
| Price | Self-hosted is free, with every feature. Coolify Cloud is $5 a month for two servers and $3 for each extra server. You pay your servers yourself. | Free to try with one application. Paid plans from €15 a month, with unlimited environments on every plan. Scaleway and bunny.net bill you directly, and Brewless takes no percentage of that. |
| For Laravel | A Laravel guide with Nixpacks or a Dockerfile, queue workers through Supervisor, and the scheduler next to the worker. | Migrations as their own step in every deploy, queues on Scaleway Queues, the schedule read from your app, Artisan on the live release, and brewless init to start from a vapor.yml. |
What Coolify does well
- Free and open source, with no feature limits when you host it yourself.
- Runs on any server you can reach over SSH, so the choice of provider is yours.
- Many ways to build, and a large catalogue of one-click services and databases.
- A large and active community.
Where Brewless is different
No servers
There is no operating system to update, no firewall to set and no disk to watch. Scaleway runs the machines.
Scales on its own
More copies of your app start when traffic rises and stop when it drops, within bounds you set, down to zero.
Managed databases
Your database is a managed service at Scaleway, with its back-ups, instead of a container on your own server.
Built for Laravel
Migrations run as their own step, the schedule is read from your app and queue workers are called when a job arrives; no Supervisor to configure.
Which one fits?
Pick Coolify if
- You want a free, open-source tool and are happy to run servers.
- You host many different apps and services on cheap machines.
- You want everything, databases included, on hardware you control.
Pick Brewless if
- You would rather not patch servers or look after back-ups.
- Your traffic varies, or the app is idle at night.
- Your apps are Laravel.
Moving from Coolify to Brewless
The build and start commands of your Coolify application map onto brewless.yml: build commands, release commands and your queues. The Supervisor worker and the scheduler need no configuration: Brewless calls the worker when a job is queued and reads the schedule from your app. Copy your database to a managed database at Scaleway, test, then move your domain.
Questions about Coolify
- Is Coolify free?
- Self-hosted Coolify is free and open source under the Apache 2.0 licence, with every feature. Coolify Cloud, which hosts only the dashboard for you, starts at $5 a month. Your servers are billed by your provider.
- Where does Coolify run my app?
- On servers you connect to it, at any provider or at home. Coolify does not provide servers for your apps, also not with Coolify Cloud.
- Coolify or Brewless?
- Both deploy into infrastructure you own. Coolify runs your apps in Docker on servers you look after; Brewless runs Laravel in serverless containers at Scaleway, so there are no servers to look after.
Sources
The facts about Coolify on this page come from its own pages, read on 20 October 2026. Prices and features change, so check them before you decide. Spotted something out of date? Mail contact@coding.agency.
Other alternatives
- Laravel Vapor alternative Serverless platform on AWS Lambda; no new signups
- Laravel Cloud alternative Managed platform on AWS
- Laravel Forge alternative Server management
- Laravel Envoyer alternative Zero-downtime deployments to your servers
- Clever Cloud alternative Platform-as-a-service
- Scalingo alternative Platform-as-a-service
- Upsun alternative Platform-as-a-service on several clouds
- Koyeb alternative Serverless platform on its own servers
- Northflank alternative Container platform, own cloud or yours
- Render alternative Managed cloud platform
- Railway alternative Usage-billed cloud platform
- Fly.io alternative Micro-VMs on its own servers
- Heroku alternative Platform-as-a-service on AWS
- Sevalla alternative Managed app platform
- Dokku alternative Self-hosted PaaS, open source
- Ploi alternative Server management
- RunCloud alternative Server management
- Cloudways alternative Managed servers
- Bref alternative Open-source framework for AWS Lambda
- Google Cloud Run alternative Serverless containers on Google Cloud
Try Brewless with your Laravel app
We open access to Laravel teams in small batches. Brewless is free to try with one application, production included; you start paying when you want your own domain or more.