Comparison

vs

Taxiway vs Coolify

Both put your apps in Docker on servers you own. The difference is what you have to run, and what you have to leave open.

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The short version

Written by the person who makes Taxiway, so read it with that in mind. I have tried to make the case against us as well as for us.

Coolify is good software and it is genuinely open source, which Taxiway is not. If being able to read, fork and outlive the vendor is your top requirement, stop reading and go use Coolify. That is a real advantage and I am not going to talk you out of it.

The difference is architectural. Coolify is a Laravel application that you host: a PHP app, Postgres, Redis and a realtime server, on a box they recommend you keep separate from your workloads. From there it opens an SSH connection into every server it manages, as root or a sudo user. That is a control plane you own, and also a control plane you now maintain, upgrade and keep patched, plus a permanently reachable SSH port on every host.

Taxiway inverts it. We run the control plane, for free, because it holds no workloads, just state. On your server there is one Go binary that dials out to us over a single WebSocket. Nothing listens for us. There is no inbound port to open, no key to rotate, no panel of yours to keep alive at 3am.

At a glance

Control plane runs

Taxiway

On our infrastructure

Coolify

On a server you provide and maintain

Written in

Taxiway

Go, one static binary

Coolify

PHP (Laravel), plus Postgres, Redis, Soketi

Reaches your server via

Taxiway

Outbound WebSocket from the agent

Coolify

Inbound SSH, as root or a sudo user

Licence

Taxiway

Closed source, for now

Coolify

Apache 2.0, fully open source

The difference is the arrow.

Both diagrams are drawn on the same grid. The thing worth staring at is which way the connection points, and how much of it you are responsible for keeping alive.

Taxiway
Our control plane Your VPS inbound: nothing Your browser or the iOS app Control plane API auth · state · views Gateway desired state · ingest Postgres your config, not your data outbound wss :443 Taxiway agent one Go binary · opens no port Traefik edge :80 and :443, the only ports you open docker web node api go postgres volume
Coolify
Panel server (yours) Your app server inbound: ssh :22 Your browser web only Control panel app Postgres Redis · realtime you patch and back this up inbound ssh :22 sshd root or sudo key, always reachable Reverse proxy :80 and :443 docker web api postgres

Feature by feature

Including the rows we lose. A comparison table with no crosses in our own column would not be worth your time.

Free to use the full platform

Taxiway

Taxiway, Free to use the full platform: yes No tiers, no seat count

Coolify

Coolify, Free to use the full platform: yes Self-hosted free; their cloud is paid

No second server for the panel

Taxiway

Taxiway, No second server for the panel: yes Control plane is ours

Coolify

Coolify, No second server for the panel: no Docs advise a separate host

No inbound port opened on your server

Taxiway

Taxiway, No inbound port opened on your server: yes Agent dials out only

Coolify

Coolify, No inbound port opened on your server: no SSH must be reachable

Works behind NAT or a firewall with no public IP

Taxiway

Taxiway, Works behind NAT or a firewall with no public IP: yes

Coolify

Coolify, Works behind NAT or a firewall with no public IP: no Needs a route in

Push to deploy from GitHub

Taxiway

Taxiway, Push to deploy from GitHub: yes

Coolify

Coolify, Push to deploy from GitHub: yes

Zero-downtime container cutover

Taxiway

Taxiway, Zero-downtime container cutover: yes Traefik pool with retry

Coolify

Coolify, Zero-downtime container cutover: yes

One-click databases

Taxiway

Taxiway, One-click databases: yes Postgres, MySQL, Mongo, Redis, more

Coolify

Coolify, One-click databases: yes

Database backups straight to your own S3

Taxiway

Taxiway, Database backups straight to your own S3: yes Uploaded by the agent, host to bucket

Coolify

Coolify, Database backups straight to your own S3: yes

Deploy a repo with no Dockerfile

Taxiway

Taxiway, Deploy a repo with no Dockerfile: partly Dockerfile required for most repos

Coolify

Coolify, Deploy a repo with no Dockerfile: yes Nixpacks and buildpacks

Docker Compose stacks

Taxiway

Taxiway, Docker Compose stacks: no Curated recipes and stacks instead

Coolify

Coolify, Docker Compose stacks: yes

Open source, forkable

Taxiway

Taxiway, Open source, forkable: no Closed source, for now

Coolify

Coolify, Open source, forkable: yes Apache 2.0

Keeps deploying if the vendor disappears

Taxiway

Taxiway, Keeps deploying if the vendor disappears: partly Containers run on; new deploys need us

Coolify

Coolify, Keeps deploying if the vendor disappears: yes It is your panel

Cron jobs and scheduled tasks

Taxiway

Taxiway, Cron jobs and scheduled tasks: no Not built yet, on the roadmap

Coolify

Coolify, Cron jobs and scheduled tasks: yes

Native iOS and iPad app

Taxiway

Taxiway, Native iOS and iPad app: partly In development

Coolify

Coolify, Native iOS and iPad app: no

Checked September 2026. Products move, and Coolify moves quickly. If something here is out of date or simply wrong, tell me and I will fix it .

Pick Coolify if…

  • You want open source, full stop. Coolify is Apache 2.0 and Taxiway is not. You can audit it, fork it, and run it after the maintainers lose interest.
  • You refuse to depend on anyone else's uptime. With Coolify there is no third party in the loop at all. If our control plane is down, you cannot start a new Taxiway deploy (your running containers are unaffected, but that is still a dependency you may not want).
  • You deploy repos without Dockerfiles. Coolify's Nixpacks and buildpack support will build a plain Node or Python repo; Taxiway generally wants a Dockerfile.
  • You live in Docker Compose files and want to paste one in.
  • You need the breadth of a large one-click service catalogue and an active community behind it today.

Pick Taxiway if…

  • You do not want to run, patch and back up a Laravel app just to deploy your Laravel app.
  • You will not open inbound SSH, or you cannot: the box is behind NAT, on a home network, or on a locked-down corporate VLAN.
  • You want the control plane's RAM back. A Go agent idles in tens of megabytes, not a PHP-FPM pool plus Postgres plus Redis.
  • You want a managed experience without a managed bill.

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