Softwr

Cloud · head to head

Coolify vs Hookdeck

Coolify logo

Coolify

Cloud

Open source self-hosted platform that deploys applications and databases to servers you already own

From
Free
Free plan
Yes
Full reviewWebsite
Hookdeck logo

Hookdeck

Developer Tools

Event gateway that receives, queues, retries and replays inbound webhooks

From
Free
Free plan
Yes
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Each has a real cost: Coolify commit history since June 2026 shows one maintainer at 73 commits and a second at 15 with nobody else above one, and the same two people also ship four other coolLabs products, so the project depends on a very small number of individuals.; Hookdeck pricing meters delivered events, so fan-out multiplies the bill: one inbound event routed to four services counts as four deliveries.
  • They diverge on capability: Coolify covers Git push deployments, Hookdeck covers Ingest and persist.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Coolify and Hookdeck actually diverge.

Attributes where Coolify and Hookdeck differ
AttributeCoolifyHookdeck
Pricing modelOpen source, no licence feePer month by delivered event count
PlatformsWeb, Linux, Docker, Self-hostedWeb, Linux, macOS, Windows
CategoryCloudDeveloper Tools

Identical on both: starting price (Free), free tier (Yes), user rating (Not yet rated).

What each one covers

Drawn from each product's published feature list. An absence here means we hold no record of it - not that the product lacks it.

Only in Coolify

  • Git push deployments
  • One-click services
  • Automatic certificates
  • Managed databases
  • Docker Compose support
  • Notifications

Only in Hookdeck

  • Ingest and persist
  • Automatic retries
  • Filters and fan-out
  • Transformations
  • Local development CLI
  • Rate limiting

What people use each for

The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.

Coolify

  • Replacing a managed platform bill with a single Hetzner or DigitalOcean instance running a dozen small applicationsnot Hookdeck
  • An agency hosting many low-traffic client sites on shared servers with certificates handled automaticallynot Hookdeck
  • Self-hosting analytics, databases and internal tools from the one-click catalogue without writing Compose filesnot Hookdeck
  • Deploying inside a country or jurisdiction where no managed platform operates a regionnot Hookdeck

Hookdeck

  • A payments integration where losing a Stripe event during a deploy causes an order to go unfulfillednot Coolify
  • Fanning one provider webhook out to several internal services without each subscribing separatelynot Coolify
  • Debugging a partner integration by replaying the exact failing payload after shipping a fixnot Coolify
  • Receiving production-shaped webhooks on a developer laptop without running a public tunnelnot Coolify

Where each one falls short

Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.

Coolify

  • Commit history since June 2026 shows one maintainer at 73 commits and a second at 15 with nobody else above one, and the same two people also ship four other coolLabs products, so the project depends on a very small number of individuals.
  • Multi-server support is documented as experimental, load balancer configuration is manual, every server must share the same CPU architecture, and moving images between hosts requires you to run your own Docker registry.
  • In self-hosted mode the Coolify machine holds every SSH key and secret with no documented high availability, so the dashboard host is a single point of failure that the paid Cloud tier fixes and self-hosting does not.
  • Scheduled S3 backups cover PostgreSQL, MySQL, MariaDB and MongoDB only, so application persistent volumes are your responsibility and a restore is untested unless you test it yourself.
  • Release cadence is fast enough that six patch versions shipped inside ten days in August 2026 against several hundred open issues, and because instances can update themselves a regression can reach a production host before you have read the changelog.

Hookdeck

  • Pricing meters delivered events, so fan-out multiplies the bill: one inbound event routed to four services counts as four deliveries.
  • Free-tier retention is three days, which is shorter than the time it typically takes to notice a failing integration, so the payloads needed for a replay are often already gone.
  • It becomes a single point of failure in front of every third-party integration, and an outage there means every provider webhook queues or fails at once.
  • The transformation layer runs JavaScript in a constrained environment, so anything that needs a database lookup or an external call has to happen downstream instead.
  • For a team already running Kafka or SQS the value is mostly the console and the replay UI, which is a hard cost to justify against infrastructure they already operate.

Pricing, plan by plan

Coolify

Free
  • Self-hostedFree
    • Apache-2.0, no features held back
    • Unlimited servers, applications and users
    • You run, update and back up the dashboard yourself
  • Cloud$5/month
    • Connects 2 servers, then 3 US dollars a month per extra server
    • Managed and updated Coolify dashboard with high availability
    • Managed backups of the Coolify instance itself

Hookdeck

Free
  • DeveloperFree
    • Up to ten thousand events per month
    • Three-day retention
    • One user
  • Team$39/month
    • Ten thousand events included
    • Unlimited users
    • Pay as you go metering above the included events
  • Growth$499/month
    • Ten thousand events included plus metered usage
    • Thirty-day retention
    • Uptime and latency SLAs
  • Enterprise$undefined/year
    • Negotiated event volume
    • Custom retention
    • Dedicated support

Which should you pick?

Choose Coolify if

  • You need git push deployments.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on Web, Linux, Docker, Self-hosted.
  • You also want one-click services.
Coolify review

Choose Hookdeck if

  • You need ingest and persist.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on Web, Linux, macOS, Windows.
  • You also want automatic retries.
Hookdeck review

Questions people ask

Is Coolify or Hookdeck better?
Neither clearly leads. Coolify starts at Free and Hookdeck at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Coolify or Hookdeck?
Coolify starts at Free and Hookdeck at Free.
Does Coolify or Hookdeck run on more platforms?
Coolify runs on Web, Linux, Docker, Self-hosted. Hookdeck runs on Web, Linux, macOS, Windows.
Can I use Coolify for free?
Both have a free tier, so you can try either at no cost before committing.
What is Coolify best used for?
Coolify is most often used for replacing a managed platform bill with a single hetzner or digitalocean instance running a dozen small applications, an agency hosting many low-traffic client sites on shared servers with certificates handled automatically, self-hosting analytics, databases and internal tools from the one-click catalogue without writing compose files, deploying inside a country or jurisdiction where no managed platform operates a region. Of those, replacing a managed platform bill with a single hetzner or digitalocean instance running a dozen small applications and an agency hosting many low-traffic client sites on shared servers with certificates handled automatically are not what Hookdeck is typically brought in for.
What can Coolify do that Hookdeck cannot?
Coolify covers Git push deployments, One-click services, Automatic certificates, Managed databases. Hookdeck covers Ingest and persist, Automatic retries, Filters and fan-out, Transformations.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Coolify: Is anything held back for the paid tier?

No. Coolify Cloud hosts, updates and backs up the dashboard and gives it high availability. Every feature that touches your applications is in the Apache-2.0 build you can run yourself.

Hookdeck: Is there a free plan?

Yes, ten thousand events a month with three-day retention and one user.

Coolify: What does Coolify Cloud cost?

Five US dollars a month connects two servers, and each additional server is three dollars a month, with 20 per cent off for annual billing. You still supply and pay for the servers themselves.

Hookdeck: How is usage counted?

By delivered events, so a single inbound webhook fanned out to three destinations counts as three.

Coolify: Does it back up my application data?

It backs up PostgreSQL, MySQL, MariaDB and MongoDB to S3 on a schedule. Application persistent volumes are not covered, so anything stored outside a managed database needs your own backup plan.

Hookdeck: Can I replay a failed webhook?

Yes, individually or in bulk from the console, with the original payload.

Coolify: Can I run it across several servers?

Yes, but the documentation calls multi-server experimental. Load balancing is not configured for you, all nodes must share a CPU architecture, and you need to run your own Docker registry.

Hookdeck: Does it work for outbound webhooks too?

Yes, the same queueing, retry and observability applies to webhooks you send.

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