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Portainer

Web UI for managing Docker, Swarm, Podman and Kubernetes environments, with a free Community Edition.

Open sourceSelf-hostableVirtual machine and container apps
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About Portainer

Portainer is a self-hosted web interface for running containers without living in the command line. You deploy it as a container itself, connect it to Docker, Docker Swarm, Podman or Kubernetes environments, and then manage containers, images, volumes, networks, stacks and Helm charts from the browser, including logs and a console. Agents let one Portainer server manage many hosts, including edge devices. The Community Edition is open source under the zlib licence and is a favourite of home-lab users. Portainer Business Edition adds role-based access control, single sign-on, auditing, GitOps deployments and fleet governance for companies, and is free for your first three nodes; beyond that it is sold per node with annual Starter, Scale and Enterprise plans. It runs on Linux, Windows and macOS hosts wherever Docker or Kubernetes runs, and is used through the browser.

Best for: Home-lab users and ops teams who want a browser UI over Docker and Kubernetes hosts.

Pros and cons

What works

  • Open-source Community Edition
  • One UI for Docker, Swarm, Podman and Kubernetes
  • Business Edition free for three nodes

Why people leave

  • RBAC and SSO need the paid Business Edition
  • Paid plans are billed annually per node
  • Heavier than compose-only managers like Dockge

Top Portainer alternatives

See all 4
  1. 1Docker Desktop logo
    Docker Desktop

    Local GUI for containers on your own machine rather than remote servers.

    59.4
  2. 2Podman Desktop logo
    Podman Desktop

    Free open-source desktop GUI for Podman and Docker containers and local Kubernetes.

    57.5
  3. 3Lens logo
    Lens

    Desktop app for Kubernetes clusters if you've moved beyond plain Docker hosts.

    52.2
  4. 4He
    Headlamp

    Open-source Kubernetes web UI from the CNCF ecosystem, free for any number of clusters.

    50.3

Why people left Portainer

In reviewers' own words, from reviews of the apps they moved to. These are their opinions, not ours.

No switching stories yet. If you moved away from Portainer, review the app you switched to and tell us why.

Reviews

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Portainer: common questions

Is Portainer free?

Yes. Portainer is free, open-source software that you can host yourself.

Is Portainer open source?

Yes. The source code is on GitHub at portainer/portainer. You can also run it on your own server.

What platforms does Portainer run on?

Portainer is available for Self-hosted and Web.

What are the best alternatives to Portainer?

The highest-ranked Portainer alternatives right now are Docker Desktop, Podman Desktop and Lens. See the full ranked list for pricing, platforms and verified facts.

See all 4 Portainer alternatives