Both are self-hosted and open source. The difference: AppCrane is built for teams deploying AI applications — with enterprise SSO, an MCP server so any AI agent (Claude Code, Cursor, Codex…) can drive deploys, per-user audit on every agent action, and real-time collaboration that Coolify doesn't have.
On the basics — Docker, HTTPS, deploys — they're roughly equivalent. The gap is at the enterprise and AI layer.
| AppCrane | Coolify | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free (self-hosted) | Free (self-hosted) |
| Open source | MIT | Apache 2 |
| Docker isolation | ✓ per app | ✓ |
| Auto-HTTPS | ✓ Caddy | ✓ Caddy / Traefik |
| GitHub webhook deploy | ✓ | ✓ |
| Zero-downtime deploy | ✓ | Partial |
| Dual environments | ✓ built-in | Manual |
| Rollback | ✓ instant | ✓ |
| Encrypted env vars | ✓ AES-256-GCM | ✓ |
| Platform Owner isolation from secrets | ✓ middleware-enforced | ✗ |
| Per-app configurable role permissions | ✓ 4-role model | ✗ |
| Enterprise SSO (SAML/OIDC/SCIM) | ✓ built-in | ✗ |
| Agent control protocol | ✓ MCP — any client | ✗ |
| Multi-platform agent support | Claude Code, Cursor, Codex, etc. | ✗ |
| Per-user audit on agent actions | ✓ token-bound | ✗ |
| Real-time team presence | ✓ | ✗ |
| One-click service templates | ✗ | ✓ (Postgres, Redis, etc.) |
| Multi-server support | Single server | ✓ multi-server |
| REST API / CLI | ✓ full CLI | Partial |
Coolify ships your code. AppCrane lets your AI agent run AppCrane — over the open MCP standard, from whichever client you already use.
agent/{slug}-{name} via the MCP branch toolcommit, push, and open_pr use your repo's normal credentials — CI, branch protection, and reviews continue to applyCoolify is a great general-purpose self-hosting platform. AppCrane is purpose-built for teams deploying AI applications in enterprise environments.