The push-to-deploy simplicity that made Heroku famous — git push and it's live — but on a server you own, driven by AI agents over MCP, with the enterprise features Heroku puts behind higher tiers baked in. One command to install. AGPL-3.0. Your infrastructure, your data, your keys.
Heroku taught a generation of developers what a good deploy feels like: no servers to configure, HTTPS handled, a database a click away, and a rollback that just works. But that convenience lives on someone else's cloud, meters by the dyno and the seat, and gates the controls enterprises need — SSO, audit, private networking — behind the priciest plans.
AppCrane keeps the feel and moves the trust boundary. It installs on a plain Ubuntu box in one command and gives you Docker isolation per app, auto-HTTPS via Caddy, zero-downtime deploys, persistent /data volumes, scheduled cron jobs, whole-system backup with off-site S3, and Nixpacks builds for Python, Go, Ruby, Rust, PHP, Node, and more. The difference from Heroku: it's yours, it's open source, and an AI agent can drive the whole thing.
# one command on your Ubuntu server — then push to deploy curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/gitayg/appCrane/main/install.sh | sudo bash
Heroku's `git push heroku main` still assumes a human at the keyboard. AppCrane goes a step further: it exposes 35 appcrane_* tools over the Model Context Protocol, so Claude Code, Cursor, or Codex can create an app, deploy to sandbox, and promote to production in plain language. Prefer the classic flow? Push from GitHub works too — or use a managed repo and ship without a GitHub account at all. Walkthrough: Deploy from Claude & Cursor.
| AppCrane | Heroku | |
|---|---|---|
| Hosting model | Self-hosted, your box | Vendor cloud |
| Pricing | Flat — your server | Per-dyno + seat |
| Push-to-deploy | ✓ | ✓ |
| Agent / MCP control | ✓ | ✗ |
| Zero-downtime deploys | ✓ | ✓ |
| Enterprise SSO (SAML/OIDC/SCIM) | ✓ | ~ |
| RBAC + per-user audit | ✓ | ~ |
| Secret hard-wall | ✓ | ✗ |
| Open source | AGPL-3.0 | ✗ |
| On-prem / air-gap friendly | ✓ | ✗ |
| No vendor lock-in | ✓ | ✗ |
Every app runs in its own container with sandbox and production environments.
Caddy provisions and renews TLS automatically, including custom domains.
Deploy Python, Go, Ruby, Rust, PHP, Node, and more — not just one runtime.
Whole-system backup plus scheduled off-site S3 backups for real disaster recovery.
Declare scheduled jobs and get persistent volumes that survive every redeploy.
SAML/OIDC/SCIM SSO, four-role RBAC, and per-user token-bound audit, included.
Yes — one-command install, Docker isolation, auto-HTTPS, zero-downtime deploys, cron, and persistent volumes, plus SSO, RBAC, and audit that Heroku tiers up. And it's agent-first.
Yes — push from GitHub, deploy over MCP with an agent, or use a managed repo with no GitHub account.
Open source, flat cost on hardware you already have — no per-dyno or per-seat metering, and enterprise features aren't paywalled.
Yes — self-host on any Ubuntu server, including on-prem or in a VPC. Code and secrets stay on your box.