Coolify is an open-source, self-hosted Platform as a Service (PaaS) that simplifies the deployment and management of a wide range of tools—everything from web applications and databases to specialized services like Ghost (which powers this blog) and N8N (for workflow automation). You can think of it as a more customizable, self-managed alternative to platforms such as Heroku, Netlify, or Vercel.

A major advantage of Coolify is its user-friendly interface, which takes care of cumbersome tasks like handling SSL certificates and managing storage volumes. Thanks to this intuitive UI, spinning up new services or testing out different setups becomes much less of a hassle.

Currently, we’re running Coolify on a budget-friendly cx32 Hetzner instance, alongside various other tools. For us, Coolify proves its worth by letting us quickly deploy, configure, and manage the services we need. It even supports pre-configured services out of the box and can work seamlessly with custom Docker Compose files.

Another benefit is how straightforward it is to manage multiple servers under one Coolify setup. It also includes built-in backup functionality, ensuring our data and configurations remain secure.

In short, Coolify strikes the perfect balance between control and convenience, helping us avoid the headaches of manual deployments while still giving us the flexibility and scalability we need.