ZenSailor vs CapRover
CapRover is the veteran here — it has been stable and dependable for years, it is open source, and it runs happily on very small servers. Where it shows its age is configuration: it uses its own captain-definition format rather than deploying your docker-compose.yml directly, and its UI predates the current generation of tooling. ZenSailor is a newer, heavier product that takes your Compose file as-is.
Choose CapRover if…
- You want open source with a long, proven stability record.
- You are running on a very small server — CapRover is lighter than ZenSailor.
- You already have captain-definition files and a workflow you like.
- You want the simplest possible mental model.
Choose ZenSailor if…
- You want your docker-compose.yml deployed as written, with no captain-definition to maintain.
- You need health-gated blue/green releases, with an explicit serialized mode for single-writer datastores.
- You want a modern dashboard with live logs, terminals, and stats.
- You want scheduled S3 backups, an audit trail, and SSO as you grow.
Feature by feature
| Feature | ZenSailor | CapRover |
|---|---|---|
| Licence | Closed source, free forever (Community Edition) | Open source (Apache 2.0) |
| Track record | Newer product | Years of stable releases |
| Resource footprint | 2 CPU / 2GB recommended | Runs comfortably on 1GB |
| Config format | Your docker-compose.yml, unmodified | captain-definition files |
| Zero-downtime deploys | Blue/green by default; serialized for single-writer stores | Swarm rolling updates |
| Multi-node clustering | NATS mesh, tag-based scheduling | Docker Swarm |
| Dashboard | Live logs, terminals, stats, command palette | Functional, dated |
| Backups | restic to S3, scheduled, restore jobs | Manual / scripted |
| AI log diagnosis | Built in, bring your own key | Not available |
| Telemetry | Account-linked, on by default, Enterprise can disable | No mandatory telemetry |
| Price | Free; Pro $29/mo; Enterprise $129/mo | Free and open source |
Compiled 2026from each project’s public documentation. Both products ship often — if something here is out of date, tell us at info@znowsoft.com and we will correct it.
Try the difference on your own server
The individual Community Edition is free forever: one developer, one node, unlimited apps and deployments.
curl -sfL https://get.zensailor.com | bash