Dokku vs Shuttle
A detailed comparison to help you choose between Dokku and Shuttle.
Quick Verdict
4.2/5
Dokku
0 reviews
3.4/5
Shuttle
0 reviews
Dokku is rated higher (4.2 vs 3.4). Dokku is an open source PaaS you deploy on any VPS. Heroku-compatible buildpacks, Git push deployments, Let's Encrypt SSL, and Docker support. Run your own Heroku on a $5 Hetzner server. Shuttle deploys Rust backend services with zero configuration — annotate your code with macros and Shuttle handles the infrastructure. No YAML, no Terraform. Pay-per-use serverless Rust.
Dokku Self-hosted mini Heroku on your own VPS | Shuttle Deploy Rust backends from your code — no config | |
|---|---|---|
| Overview | ||
| Rating | 4.2 (0 reviews)✓ | 3.4 (0 reviews) |
| Pricing model | free | freemium |
| Starting price | Free | Free tier available |
| Best for | Developers comfortable with Linux who want Heroku-style deployments at VPS pricing on infrastructure they own and control | Rust developers — solo or small teams — who want a backend live in minutes from annotated code and can accept a London-only region and no contractual uptime guarantee. |
| Specifications (entry plan) | ||
| CPU cores | — | 0 vCPU |
| RAM | — | 1 GB |
| Storage | — | 1 GB |
| Bandwidth | — | — |
| SLA uptime | — | — |
| Data-center count | — | 1 |
| €/GB RAM/mo | — | €0.00 |
| Features | ||
| IPv6 | ✓ | |
| DDoS protection | ✓ | |
| Automated backups | ✓ | |
| Snapshots | ✓ | |
| Managed option | ||
| Bare metal | ||
| GPU available | ||
| S3-compatible | ||
| Hourly billing | ✓ | |
| Free tier | ||
| Data-center locations | ||
| Regions | — | AWS eu-west-2 (London) |
| Tags | ||
| Tags | free tieropen sourceself hostable | free tieropen sourceus datacenter |
| Visit Dokku → | Visit Shuttle → | |
Dokku
Pros
- + Free MIT-licensed software — you only pay for the underlying server
- + Heroku-compatible buildpacks and git push workflow make migration from Heroku straightforward
- + Mature project (since 2013) with 353 releases and a large plugin ecosystem
- + Full control over data, costs and where your apps physically run
- + Optional Dokku Pro is a one-time $849 lifetime license, not a subscription
Cons
- - Self-managed: OS updates, security, backups and monitoring are your responsibility
- - Single-host design — no built-in failover, autoscaling or multi-host scheduling
- - Support is community-only (GitHub issues, Slack) unless you buy Dokku Pro
- - Plugin quality and upgrade compatibility vary across the community ecosystem
Shuttle
Pros
- + Infrastructure from code annotations: databases, secrets and static assets provisioned from function signatures, no YAML or Terraform
- + Real free tier (0.25 vCPU, 0.5 GB RAM, 0.5 GB database, 100 build minutes/month) with custom domain support
- + Published, itemized usage rates ($0.12/GB storage, $0.025/build minute, $0.10/GB egress) instead of sales-quoted pricing
- + Clear isolation tiering: spot instances on free, reserved VM-isolated instances from Pro
- + First-class Rust framework support (Axum, Actix Web, Rocket, Serenity) and open-source platform code
Cons
- - Rust only — other language stacks are not supported today
- - Single AWS region (London, eu-west-2) with no region choice below the not-yet-available Enterprise tier
- - No published uptime SLA on any current tier; support is Discord-based with 1-business-day response on Pro
- - Steep jump from $20/mo Pro to $250/mo Growth, with metered usage on top of every paid tier
- - Tier contents have changed materially over time (projects and included egress were cut in 2025)
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