AppCrane is the self-hosted counterpart: Docker isolation, auto-HTTPS via Caddy, and GitHub-native deploys on one server you own — driven by your AI agent over MCP, with no cloud bill.
AWS App Runner builds and runs containers on AWS with autoscaling and load balancing managed for you — powerful, but it's AWS-hosted, AWS-priced, and wired into the broader AWS surface area you have to manage.
| AppCrane | AWS App Runner | |
|---|---|---|
| Where it runs | A server you own — any Ubuntu box | AWS (managed, AWS-priced) |
| Where code & data live | On infrastructure you own; nothing phones home | On the provider’s cloud |
| Pricing model | One server you already pay for — no per-seat, per-request or bandwidth metering | Usage- or seat-metered, billed by the provider |
| Deploys | GitHub-native push-to-deploy, zero-downtime releases, instant symlink rollback | Managed build & deploy pipeline |
| Agent-native (MCP) | MCP server — your AI agent deploys, sets env, reads logs, rolls back | No MCP; dashboard, CLI or CI |
| Isolation & TLS | Per-app Docker containers, auto-HTTPS via Caddy | Managed container runtime |
| Openness / lock-in | Open source (AGPL-3.0), standard Docker + Caddy — leave anytime | Proprietary managed platform |
| Audit | Per-user audit: who deployed what, which environment, when | Provider-defined logging |
AWS App Runner is a good fit when you want someone else to own the servers. Choose AppCrane when the apps are agent-built, the agent should do the deploying, and your code, data and audit trail should stay on infrastructure you own. It’s open source — read every line.