Shipcel vs Coolify

Coolify installs on a Linux server (2 cores, 2 GB of memory and 10 GB of disk at least) and runs your apps there in Docker, built from Git with Nixpacks, Railpack, a Dockerfile or Docker Compose, beside databases and one-click services. You keep the server updated, backed up and big enough. Shipcel deploys to Cloudflare’s network in your own account: a Worker starts per request and costs nothing while idle, and there’s no machine to look after. Long-running Docker services run as Cloudflare Containers on Workers Paid.

Which one fits

Choose Shipcel if

You don’t want to run a server: no operating system updates, disks, Docker upgrades or capacity to plan. Cloudflare runs Workers in its own data centres, near your visitors.
Your traffic is small or uneven: Cloudflare’s free plan includes 100,000 requests a day and a Worker costs nothing between requests, where a server is paid for all month.
You want a database, files and sign-in without hosting them: D1, R2 and KV in your account, scheduled copies of D1 in R2, and Shipcel’s sign-in and data API.

Choose Coolify if

You run long-lived Docker services or anything that needs a full Linux machine: Docker Compose stacks, 360+ one-click services, and Postgres, MySQL, MongoDB or Redis next to your app.
You already have servers, or your data must stay on hardware you choose.
You want an open-source platform today: Coolify is Apache-2.0; Shipcel’s license isn’t chosen yet.

Side by side

What runs where, and what it costs
	Shipcel + Cloudflare	Coolify
Runs on	Cloudflare’s network, in your account; no server	Your Linux servers, amd64 or arm64, at least 2 cores, 2 GB of memory and 10 GB of disk
The platform	Free, as a launch offer	Free self-hosted; Cloud $5 a month for 2 servers, then $3 a month a server
Compute	Workers: 100,000 requests a day free; Workers Paid $5 a month	The servers, billed by whoever rents them to you
Deploys from	GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket and Gitea, your terminal, drag and drop, AI agents	GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket and Gitea, with Nixpacks, Railpack, a Dockerfile, Docker Compose or an image
Databases	D1 (SQLite) in your account; Postgres or MySQL hosted elsewhere, through Hyperdrive	Postgres, MySQL, MariaDB, MongoDB, Redis and others, on your server
Backups	Time Travel restore (30 days on Workers Paid), and daily or weekly copies in R2	Scheduled dumps of Postgres, MySQL, MariaDB, MongoDB, ClickHouse and SQLite, on the server and in S3-compatible storage
Notifications	Webhook, Telegram and email	Email, Discord, Telegram, Slack or Mattermost, Pushover and webhooks
Shared variables	A secret set on several projects at once	Team, project, environment and server variables, referenced from an app’s
License	Not chosen yet	Apache-2.0

Billing and surprise-bill protection

Coolify itself costs nothing when you host it. Coolify Cloud runs it for you for $5 a month with 2 servers connected and $3 a month for each one after; the servers stay yours to rent, and a team on Cloud has its own subscription.
Cloudflare’s free plan is never billed for Workers, D1 or KV: over a daily limit, requests and queries fail until midnight UTC. R2 file storage bills usage beyond its free tier (never egress).
Workers Paid ($5 a month per account) has no hard spending cap. Budget alerts email you when usage passes an amount ($10 by default) but don’t stop anything; per-Worker CPU and subrequest limits can stop runaway code. Shipcel’s budget guard alerts over each app’s budget ($0 by default) and can pause the app, minutes after the budget is crossed.

Moving from Coolify

An app Nixpacks or a Dockerfile builds, serving HTTP, often runs as a Worker with the nodejs_compat flag, or unchanged as a Cloudflare Container on Workers Paid.
A database on the Coolify server moves to D1 if it fits SQLite, or stays where it is and is reached through Hyperdrive (Postgres and MySQL).
One-click services are few on Shipcel (Umami and n8n as starter kits) where Coolify has hundreds.

Sources

Checked 8 October 2026. Prices change; confirm on each provider's page before you decide.