Cloudgate vs Coolify
Coolify and Cloudgate both put apps and databases on servers you own and can both be self-hosted. They differ in license, in reach beyond your servers, and in how AI agents get in.
Where your app runs
- Your Server
- Your AWS
- Your Google Cloud
- Coolify on your server
Cloudgate vs Coolify: the short answer
Choose Coolify if an open-source license and a large community catalogue matter most to you.
Choose Cloudgate if you also want to deploy into AWS and Google Cloud’s managed services, give AI agents their own scoped access over MCP, or use a hosted console instead of running one.
Coolify is described here in general terms that rarely change. Check its own site for current plans and limits before you decide.
How do Cloudgate and Coolify compare?
The questions that decide it: whose machines, what it costs as you grow, and how far an AI agent can reach.
| Cloudgate | Coolify | |
|---|---|---|
| Where your apps run | Your own Servers over SSH, your AWS or Google Cloud account, or a server bought from Cloudgate | Servers you connect over SSH, including cloud VMs |
| Who owns the servers | You do. Apps and data stay on your machines and in your cloud accounts | You do |
| What you can run | Long-running containers: web apps, workers, private services, cron jobs, static sites, Compose stacks and AI models | Apps, databases and Docker Compose services on your servers |
| Pricing model | Hosted: $15 or $35 a month, counting Servers and Cloud Environments, never members. Servers and cloud usage are billed by their provider | Free to self-host; a paid cloud option runs the dashboard for you |
| AI agent access over MCP | Built in. Each Agent is a member with its own role, grant and keys; every call is audited, secrets are masked, and it gets 120 reads and 10 writes a minute | See Coolify’s docs for its API and any MCP support |
| Self-hosting | Yes, free under the Elastic License 2.0 (source-available) | Yes, open source under the Apache License 2.0 |
| Databases | PostgreSQL, MySQL, MariaDB, MongoDB, Redis and libSQL on your Servers; RDS, Cloud SQL, ElastiCache and Memorystore in your cloud | Common databases as containers on your servers |
| Preview deployments | One per GitHub pull request, or a requested preview that expires on its own | Preview deployments for pull requests |
The Cloudgate column is checked against the product. See Cloudgate’s plans and prices, everything Cloudgate deploys and runs, and how AI agents connect over MCP.
When should you choose Coolify instead?
Honestly, sometimes you should. And sometimes Cloudgate fits better.
Choose Coolify if
- You want an OSI-approved open-source license.
- You want its large catalogue of one-click services and an active community.
- You only deploy to your own servers and never into cloud managed services.
Choose Cloudgate if
- You want to deploy into AWS (ECS, RDS, S3) and Google Cloud (Cloud Run, Cloud SQL), not only onto servers.
- You want each AI agent to be a member with its own role, grant, keys, audit trail and rate limits.
- You want one reviewed Plan from a
cloudgate.yamlbefore anything changes. - You would rather use a hosted console than run the platform yourself.
Worth knowing: Cloudgate is young. Its command-line tool is still a beta on npm, and the Servers you connect are yours to keep updated. Read what changed recently.
Cloudgate vs Coolify: questions people ask
Is Cloudgate open source like Coolify?
No. Cloudgate is source-available under the Elastic License 2.0: free to use, self-host and modify, but you may not offer it to others as a hosted service. Coolify is open source under the Apache License 2.0. Read Cloudgate’s license in plain English.
Can Cloudgate deploy to AWS and Google Cloud?
Yes. Besides your own Servers, Cloudgate deploys into your AWS account (ECS Fargate, RDS, ElastiCache, S3 and CloudFront) and your Google Cloud project (Cloud Run, Cloud SQL, Memorystore), made with OpenTofu, with drift shown when someone changes them by hand.
Can I self-host Cloudgate like Coolify?
Yes. One script installs it on an Ubuntu 24.04 server. The free version holds one Organization and runs one build at a time per Server; an Enterprise license adds the rest. Read how to self-host Cloudgate.
How do AI agents connect to Cloudgate?
Over MCP, at your console’s address plus /mcp, with an agent key. The Agent is a member with its own role and grant, every call is in the audit log, and stored secrets are masked out of every result. Read how Agents work.
Is there a hosted version of Cloudgate?
Yes. The hosted console at cloudgate.octabyte.app is run by Octabyte and deploys to your Servers and cloud accounts, from $15 a month with a 30-day free trial.
Other comparisons
- Cloudgate vs HerokuA long-running platform as a service that runs your apps on its own infrastructure.
- Cloudgate vs VercelA frontend cloud built around Next.js, serverless functions and a preview for every push.
- Cloudgate vs RenderA cloud platform for web services, workers, cron jobs and managed databases on its own cloud.
- All comparisonsCloudgate beside Heroku, Vercel, Render and Coolify in one table.
Try Cloudgate beside Coolify
Start the 30-day free trial, connect one server or cloud account, and deploy the same app to both. Or self-host Cloudgate for free.