Raff Apps wins on managed runtime infrastructure, fixed service ceilings, $0 public application egress, first-party managed data services, and reduced server maintenance. Coolify wins on open-source ownership, host-level control, infrastructure-provider choice, broader Git-provider support, and the ability to deploy unlimited workloads across user-selected servers. Choose Coolify when owning the server and control plane is part of the requirement; choose Raff when the goal is to deploy services without operating the platform beneath them. Raff Apps starts at $3/month including runtime, while Coolify self-hosted software is $0 and Coolify Cloud starts at $5/month for two connected servers before workload-server costs.
Coolify and Raff Apps can both deploy Git projects, Dockerfiles, images, and Docker Compose stacks, but the operational boundary is fundamentally different. Coolify runs as an open-source control plane over infrastructure the customer supplies, and Coolify Cloud manages that control plane for $5/month while customers still bring their own servers. Raff Technologies includes the application runtime inside published service tiers, starting at $3/month with $0 public app egress. The comparison therefore turns on infrastructure ownership, operating responsibility, and whether server density or service-by-service cost boundaries matter more.
Coolify vs Raff: which is right for you?
Coolify is the better fit when server ownership is intentional. Raff is the better fit when infrastructure maintenance is work the application team wants the platform to absorb.
| Decision factor | Choose Raff Apps | Choose Coolify |
|---|
| Operating model | Managed application runtime and platform | Open-source control plane on servers you own or rent |
| Entry price | Micro from $3/month including runtime | Self-hosted software $0; server required |
| Managed control plane | Included | Cloud $5/month for 2 connected servers |
| Cost boundary | Published per-service ceiling and default spend cap | Server bill + storage + networking + backup + optional Cloud fee |
| Server maintenance | Raff manages platform hosts | Customer manages workload servers |
| Location choice | One public us-east region | Any supported user-selected server location |
| Portability | Dockerfile, image, buildpacks, and full Compose import | Open-source control plane, Docker, Compose, and host access |
For a small team, the most important question is not whether Coolify or Raff has more deployment features. It is whether Linux patching, Docker capacity, SSH security, disk pressure, network policy, workload backups, and provider billing should remain part of the team's operating model.
Coolify overview
Coolify is an open-source, self-hostable platform for deploying applications, databases, and Docker-compatible services on infrastructure selected by the user. Its documentation explicitly says Coolify is not a cloud service that supplies application compute: users provide a VPS, EC2 instance, Raspberry Pi, laptop, or other supported server and connect it over SSH.
The self-hosted edition is free forever with the full feature set. Coolify supports GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket, Gitea, and other Git sources; Dockerfiles; Docker Compose; container images; pull-request deployments; automatic Let's Encrypt certificates; APIs; webhooks; monitoring; database deployments; S3-compatible backups; and Docker Swarm. Its current documentation says Kubernetes support is coming later.
Coolify Cloud manages the Coolify control plane rather than the workload servers. It costs $5/month for up to 2 connected servers and $3/month for each additional server, with a 20% discount displayed for annual billing. Customers still bring and pay for the servers where applications, databases, and services run. Coolify Cloud reports 2,100+ active users, while the broader Coolify documentation reports 204,000+ servers running Coolify and a community above 16,000 members.
Coolify's strongest advantages are ownership and infrastructure freedom. Teams can choose server providers and locations, keep data and configuration on their own infrastructure, use host-level Docker capabilities, and move the control plane without translating every application into a proprietary runtime model.
Raff overview
Raff Apps is a managed application platform for deploying source code and containers without administering the underlying operating system. It supports GitHub push-to-deploy, buildpacks, Dockerfiles, existing container images, and full Docker Compose imports.
Raff Apps supports public web services, private services, background workers, timezone-aware cron jobs, one-off jobs, pull-request previews, immutable revisions, one-click rollback, persistent volumes, and scale-to-zero behavior. Applications can connect to managed PostgreSQL, MySQL, Valkey, ClickHouse, and Kafka, as well as object storage, VMs, private networking, Kubernetes, and Functions.
Current Raff Apps tiers are:
| Tier | vCPU | RAM | Ephemeral disk | Monthly ceiling |
|---|
| Micro | 0.25 | 512 MB | 2 GB | $3.00 |
| Starter | 0.5 | 1 GB | 5 GB | $6.99 |
| Standard | 1 | 2 GB | 10 GB | $16.99 |
| Pro | 2 | 4 GB | 20 GB | $27.99 |
| Pro Max | 4 | 8 GB | 40 GB | $61.99 |
| Scale | 8 | 16 GB | 80 GB | $119.99 |
Compute is billed per second against the published monthly ceiling. Public application egress and team seats are priced at $0, and the spend cap is enabled by default.
Raff currently reports 3,000+ customers, 15,000+ production VMs, and a 99.9% platform SLA. Raff was verified at 4.5/5 on August 16, 2026, and G2 is 4.6/5. Raff gives up Coolify's host-level freedom in exchange for a smaller operational surface and explicit service-by-service resource boundaries.
Coolify pricing vs Raff pricing
Coolify and Raff price different layers. Raff's Apps price includes the application runtime. Coolify self-hosted is software that runs on infrastructure the customer supplies, while Coolify Cloud charges for a hosted control plane and still requires external workload servers.
| Buying position | Raff Apps | Coolify | Decision signal |
|---|
| Entry deployment | Micro $3 including runtime | Self-hosted $0 software + server | Coolify wins if suitable infrastructure already exists |
| Hosted control plane | Included in Apps service | Cloud $5/month for up to 2 servers | Coolify Cloud fee does not include workload compute |
| 3 connected servers | Workloads priced by selected Apps services | $8/month control-plane fee + 3 server bills | Coolify rewards teams intentionally operating a server fleet |
| 10 connected servers | Workloads priced by selected Apps services | $29/month control-plane fee + 10 server bills | Server, storage, transfer, and operations dominate total cost |
| 2 vCPU / 4 GB application | Raff Pro $27.99 including managed runtime | No fixed Coolify compute price; depends on chosen server | Not a performance-equivalent price comparison |
Comparison class: Coolify is a control plane, not a fixed compute service. Its software fee cannot be compared directly with a Raff Apps instance unless the Coolify workload server, storage, bandwidth, backup destination, and operating effort are included.
Automated backups
Coolify Cloud automatically backs up the Coolify Cloud database every 24 hours. That protects the managed control plane; it should not be treated as an automatic backup of every application, database, or persistent volume on connected servers.
For workload data, Coolify supports scheduled database backups using cron-style frequencies and can store backups locally or in S3-compatible storage with configurable retention. The operator chooses the schedule, storage target, and retention policy and remains responsible for verifying restores.
Raff also separates application deployment rollback from durable-data recovery. App revisions are not database backups. Production state should live in managed databases, object storage, or persistent volumes with a documented recovery path appropriate to the selected service.
Hidden infrastructure costs
Coolify's self-hosted $0 software price is real, but total application cost can include the server, block or local storage, snapshots, public transfer, backup storage, monitoring, spare capacity for builds, and engineering time for updates and incidents. Coolify Cloud removes maintenance of the Coolify instance itself, not the connected workload servers.
Coolify can be cheaper when several low-traffic applications share one well-managed server. Raff can cost more than dense server packing because services have explicit resource boundaries, but that model also limits the number of operational variables a small application team must own.
Bandwidth and transfer policy
Raff Apps charges $0 for public application egress. Coolify does not publish one universal workload-bandwidth price because the user's connected server provider controls transfer allowances, overage rates, port characteristics, and regional network charges.
That distinction makes Coolify's network economics highly provider-dependent. A server with generous or unmetered transfer can make a Coolify deployment attractive for bandwidth-heavy applications, while a server with metered cloud egress can create a materially different bill even though Coolify itself adds no per-GB application fee.
For budgeting, a Coolify team must evaluate at least two separate network boundaries: traffic associated with the workload server and any storage or cross-region transfer used by the application. Raff collapses normal public Apps egress to $0, making transfer easier to forecast but offering less location choice than Coolify's bring-your-own-server model.
Feature comparison: Coolify vs Raff
| Feature | Raff Apps | Coolify |
|---|
| Primary model | Managed app runtime | Open-source deployment control plane |
| Git providers | GitHub | GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket, Gitea, other Git sources |
| Dockerfile / existing image | Yes | Yes |
| Docker Compose | Full stack import | Primary deployment path, including raw Compose |
| Pull-request deployments | Yes | Yes |
| Host-level access | No | Yes, on user-controlled servers |
| Location choice | Public us-east region | Any supported server location/provider |
| Public app egress | $0 | Provider-dependent |
| Long-running workers | First-class service type | Containers/services configured by operator |
| Private services | First-class service type | Docker/provider networking controlled by operator |
| Persistent volumes | Managed application volumes | Host/provider storage controlled by operator |
| Managed PostgreSQL | First-party Raff service | Customer-operated PostgreSQL deployment |
| Managed MySQL | First-party Raff service | Customer-operated MySQL/MariaDB deployment |
| S3-compatible backups | Available through Raff data products | Configurable scheduled DB/instance backups |
| Multi-server | Managed platform abstraction | Unlimited connected servers; Docker Swarm supported |
| Kubernetes | Raff Managed Kubernetes is live separately | Documented as coming later |
| Team members | $0 Apps seat fee | Unlimited; Cloud teams can require separate subscriptions |
| Open-source control plane | No | Yes |
Coolify wins on infrastructure-provider choice, host access, open-source ownership, Git-provider breadth, and server-level Docker control. Raff wins on managed workload infrastructure, explicit service resources, first-party managed data services, $0 public application egress, and removing Linux/Docker host maintenance from the application team's responsibilities.
Features and reliability: Raff vs Coolify
This comparison includes 0 controlled Raff-versus-Coolify application benchmarks, so it does not declare either platform faster. Coolify does not have one standardized compute substrate: the user can deploy it against VPS instances, dedicated servers, local machines, cloud instances, or Docker Swarm clusters, so performance follows the chosen infrastructure and topology.
Reliability ownership
Raff operates the Apps platform host, deployment system, and runtime infrastructure. The customer still owns application code, configuration, data design, secrets, and external dependencies.
Coolify self-hosting shifts more of the reliability surface to the operator: Linux security updates, SSH access, Docker updates, disk capacity, reverse proxy availability, server monitoring, provider incidents, workload backups, and recovery. Coolify Cloud removes maintenance of the Coolify control plane, but connected servers remain customer-operated infrastructure.
Application isolation and density
Coolify lets teams pack several workloads onto one server and configure Docker resource limits themselves. That can improve infrastructure utilization, but it also creates a shared capacity and failure domain unless the operator deliberately isolates workloads and reserves headroom.
Raff assigns applications to published service tiers. The team gives up some server-packing flexibility but gets explicit vCPU/RAM boundaries and monthly ceilings per service.
Backups and recovery
Coolify supports scheduled database backups and S3-compatible destinations with configurable retention. Coolify Cloud separately backs up its own control-plane database every 24 hours. Application volumes, uploaded files, provider snapshots, and external services still need an explicit recovery design.
Raff also requires state-aware recovery planning. Application revision rollback, managed-database recovery, object storage, and persistent-volume protection are separate concerns and should be tested independently.
Release safety
Coolify supports health checks and can roll back using Docker images that remain available locally. Raff uses immutable application revisions and one-click rollback. In both cases, rolling application code backward does not automatically undo incompatible database migrations or restore lost data.
Availability design
Coolify can connect unlimited servers and supports single-server, multi-server, and Docker Swarm setups, giving experienced teams wide freedom to design availability. The platform does not turn a single connected server into a highly available application automatically.
Raff publishes a 99.9% platform SLA and abstracts host placement from the Apps user. Application architecture still matters: a single app instance, database, or external dependency can remain a failure point on either model.
When you should choose Coolify over Raff
Choose Coolify when:
- Open-source ownership is mandatory. The full Coolify feature set is available in its $0 self-hosted edition.
- You already operate servers well. The team has Linux, Docker, monitoring, backup, and incident-response practices in place.
- Infrastructure-provider choice matters. Coolify can connect unlimited compatible servers from locations and providers you select.
- Multi-app server density is valuable. Several low-traffic services can share one server instead of each having a separate managed service tier.
- Git-provider breadth matters. Coolify supports GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket, Gitea, and other Git workflows.
- Deep Docker control is required. Raw Compose, custom networks, storage, and host-level configuration remain available to the operator.
- A large self-hosted service catalog is useful. Coolify documents 200+ one-click services alongside arbitrary Docker-compatible workloads.
Coolify can also run on a Raff Linux VM when a team wants Coolify's control plane while keeping the underlying server on Raff infrastructure. The Coolify installation tutorial covers that path.
When you should choose Raff over Coolify
Choose Raff Apps when:
- Server maintenance should disappear from the workflow. Raff manages the runtime host instead of asking the application team to patch Linux and Docker.
- Service cost boundaries matter. Raff Standard is $16.99 for 1 vCPU / 2 GB and Raff Pro is $27.99 for 2 vCPU / 4 GB, each with a published ceiling.
- Public transfer is substantial. Raff Apps prices public egress at $0 rather than inheriting a connected server provider's transfer schedule.
- Managed databases are preferred. Raff provides PostgreSQL, MySQL, Valkey, ClickHouse, and Kafka without operating database containers inside the app stack.
- A default spend guardrail matters. The Apps spend cap is enabled by default.
- Persistent application services are the main abstraction. Web, private, worker, cron, and one-off services are first-class platform types.
- One cloud account should span the stack. Apps can connect to Raff databases, object storage, VMs, private networks, Kubernetes, and Functions.
Migrating from Coolify to Raff
- Inventory every Coolify resource. Record applications, Compose stacks, Git sources, domains, environment variables, secrets, ports, health checks, volumes, databases, schedules, webhooks, and host-specific dependencies. Gotcha: Coolify labels and proxy rules are not portable application configuration.
- Map workloads to Raff services. Move public HTTP workloads to web services, internal components to private services, consumers to workers, schedules to cron jobs, and administrative commands to one-off jobs.
- Choose a portable deployment source. Use GitHub, an existing image, a Dockerfile, buildpacks, or a Docker Compose import. Gotcha: bind mounts, host networking, privileged containers, devices, and host paths may need redesign on a managed platform.
- Export persistent state. Create database-native dumps, archive application volumes, copy uploaded files, verify checksums, and move shared object data to an appropriate durable service before final synchronization.
- Recreate configuration and verify. Add secrets, domains, health checks, private bindings, storage, database credentials, OAuth callbacks, webhooks, and allowlists. Test a temporary hostname and perform a restore rehearsal.
- Cut over with rollback. Lower DNS TTL to 300 seconds, freeze writes where necessary, complete the final data sync, change DNS and callbacks, monitor production, and retain the Coolify deployment until the rollback window closes.
Stateless containers are usually the simplest part of a Coolify-to-Raff migration. Stateful volumes, databases, host networking, server cron, proxy labels, and provider-specific infrastructure create most of the migration risk.
About Coolify
Coolify is an open-source self-hosting platform operated by coolLabs Solutions Kft., a Hungary-based software company. It deploys applications, databases, and Docker-compatible services to customer-controlled infrastructure and offers both a free self-hosted control plane and a managed Coolify Cloud option. Official documentation currently reports 204,000+ servers running Coolify.
Conclusion: Coolify or Raff?
The Coolify-versus-Raff decision resolves across four measured axes: operating responsibility, cost boundary, infrastructure control, and data/availability ownership.
- Operating responsibility: Raff manages the Apps runtime host; Coolify users manage workload servers even when the Coolify Cloud control plane is managed.
- Cost boundary: Raff Apps starts at $3 with published service ceilings; Coolify self-hosted is $0 software and Cloud starts at $5 for 2 servers, but workload infrastructure is separate.
- Infrastructure control: Coolify provides open-source host access and user-selected locations; Raff deliberately abstracts the host and exposes one public
us-east Apps region.
- Data and availability ownership: Coolify gives operators direct control over Docker, storage, backup schedules, and multi-server topology; Raff provides managed service boundaries and first-party data products.
Choose Coolify when open-source ownership, server density, provider choice, and host-level control justify owning the infrastructure lifecycle. Choose Raff when the objective is to ship connected application services with explicit resource ceilings, $0 public egress, managed data services, and less server administration.
Raff currently reports 3,000+ customers, 15,000+ production VMs, a 99.9% platform SLA, Trustpilot 4.5/5, and G2 4.6/5. For adjacent decisions, review Render Alternative 2026, Self-Hosting Apps on Raff, and Install Coolify on Ubuntu 24.04.
