Compare Tenkai with Coolify and Dokploy

Coolify, Dokploy and Tenkai all deploy your applications to servers you own. They do not share the same idea of what that means.

Coolify and Dokploy are panels that run Docker commands on your servers for you. Keeping production up is your job. Tenkai is a product that runs your production for you, and keeps it resilient and secure.

The short answer

Choose Tenkai to run production. Coolify and Dokploy have one advantage. You can host them yourself and read their code.

A cluster, not a list of servers

In Tenkai, you run a cluster. Each server you add becomes one of its nodes, even at another provider. Tenkai places each replica on a node that has room, and spreads the replicas across zones, so losing one node does not stop an application that runs several replicas. The registry and the private network come with the cluster.

Tenkai keeps your cluster running while you change it. You can drain a node to move its applications elsewhere, move the edge node to another server without cutting the traffic, or make the cluster highly available with three managers, so it survives the loss of one.

Coolify and Dokploy manage servers one by one. In Coolify, each server stays on its own. Dokploy can join servers into a Docker Swarm, but you run the join command on each one, bring your own registry, and write each Swarm setting of an application in JSON for the Docker API. It documents how to add a node, and leaves the rest of the maintenance to Docker Swarm commands.

Servers kept up to date

The Upkeep tab of each server shows its pending updates and whether it needs a reboot. Tenkai installs the updates you ask for, and leaves Docker Engine alone so your containers keep running. Before a reboot, it moves the applications that can run elsewhere and the primary of each highly available database to other nodes, so they keep serving.

Dokploy does not update your servers. Coolify installs the package updates, Docker included, and warns that they can break your applications. You reboot the server yourself, and what runs on it stops meanwhile.

Managed services

A database in Tenkai is a managed service. You choose PostgreSQL, MySQL, Redis® or Valkey, and Tenkai runs it, backs it up and restores it.

Take a PostgreSQL database as an example.

• High availability. It runs on two nodes. When one fails, the other takes the writes by itself.
• Restore to a second. A continuous backup lets you return it to any second, such as the one before a bad migration.
• Encrypted backups. Each daily backup is encrypted on your server, so only your team can read it, and goes to a storage bucket you own.

High availability and the continuous backup are in early access.

Coolify and Dokploy run each database in a single container. When its server fails, the database stops, and a restore only brings back the last dump. Coolify keeps its backups on the server unless you add S3, and neither encrypts them.

A managed marketplace

Each marketplace app runs an exact version. We follow every new release, and email you when the version you run has a security flaw. You upgrade your copy after a backup, and keep the changes you made. An app that keeps files is backed up with its databases at the same moment, and one restore brings them all back.

In Coolify and Dokploy, an app is a Docker Compose file copied from a catalog. About half of the Coolify templates and a third of the Dokploy ones use the latest tag or no tag, so you cannot tell which version runs. Changes to their catalog never reach an app you installed, so you merge them into its Compose file yourself. Neither warns you about a flaw.

Blue-green deployments

Your application keeps answering while a new version goes live. Tenkai starts the new version next to the old one, and moves the traffic once it answers. An application that keeps files is the exception, and usually stops for less than a minute.

Coolify starts the new container next to the old one, except for a Docker Compose app or one that publishes a port, which stops first. Dokploy stops the running container first, unless you write a health check in its Swarm settings.

The security of your servers

Each project has its own private network, so one project cannot reach the database of another. Tenkai warns you when someone changes your servers by hand, such as an open port or an unknown SSH key. It blocks attackers with CrowdSec, which you turn on in one click.

In Coolify and Dokploy, the applications and databases you create share one network by default. Only Docker Compose apps get their own. You also install and configure CrowdSec yourself.

Move from Coolify or Dokploy

Tenkai can copy your PostgreSQL or MySQL from Coolify or Dokploy, through its connection URL or a dump.

Pricing

Tenkai charges a flat price for each team, however many applications you run. A year costs the price of 10 months.

Coolify Cloud costs $5 a month for 2 servers, plus $3 for each additional server. Dokploy Cloud costs $4.50 a month for each server. With 10 servers, you pay 24 € with Tenkai, $29 with Coolify and $45 with Dokploy.

Sources

We read these pages in October 2026.

• Coolify, with its installation, servers, several servers, Docker Swarm, rolling updates, preview deployments, updating a service, service templates and their source, destinations, databases, backups, storage backups, server patching and pricing, and its comparison with Dokploy.
• Dokploy, with its installation, cluster, remote servers, deployment options, zero downtime, Swarm settings, preview deployments, isolated deployments, backups, volume backups, CrowdSec, templates and their source, Postgres replication, server updates and pricing.

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