ZenSailor vs CapRover
CapRover is the veteran here: stable, open source, lightweight, and backed by a straightforward deployment CLI. Choose it when that simplicity and track record matter most. ZenSailor is a newer, heavier product for a different operating model: it takes your Compose file directly, gates traffic on health, provides current logs and infrastructure views, and gives coding agents authenticated MCP tools plus live API discovery instead of asking them to drive a dashboard or wrap a deployment CLI.
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.
- You want coding agents to understand deployments, logs, and platform schemas through native MCP.
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 |
| MCP / AI agent control | Native MCP + live API discovery + agent skill; role-aware redeploys | Deployment CLI; no documented native MCP server |
| 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 2026 from 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 Both products ship often — if something here is out of date, tell us at info@znowsoft.com and we will correct it.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