CapRover — Automated Docker Deployment PaaS with Web UI

What CapRover Does

• Web Dashboard: Beautiful web UI for managing all deployments and settings
• One-Click Apps: 100+ pre-configured apps (WordPress, PostgreSQL, MongoDB, Redis, Ghost, etc.)
• Git Push Deploy: Deploy via git push, CI/CD webhook, or Docker image
• Automatic HTTPS: Let's Encrypt certificates for all apps, auto-renewed
• Docker Swarm: Built-in cluster support for high availability and scaling
• Dockerfile/Docker Compose: Deploy any Dockerfile or docker-compose.yml
• CLI Tool: Command-line tool for deployment from CI/CD pipelines
• Persistent Storage: Managed volumes for databases and stateful apps
• Custom Nginx: Full nginx configuration per app for advanced routing

Architecture

┌──────────────────────────────────────┐
│  CapRover Server                     │
│  ┌──────────┐  ┌──────────────────┐  │
│  │ Captain  │  │  Docker Swarm    │  │
│  │ (Web UI) │  │  ┌────┐ ┌────┐  │  │
│  │ (Node.js)│  │  │App1│ │App2│  │  │
│  └──────────┘  │  └────┘ └────┘  │  │
│  ┌──────────┐  │  ┌────┐ ┌────┐  │  │
│  │  Nginx   │  │  │ DB │ │Cache│  │  │
│  │ (Proxy)  │  │  └────┘ └────┘  │  │
│  └──────────┘  └──────────────────┘  │
└──────────────────────────────────────┘

Getting Started

1. Install CapRover

# On a VPS with Docker installed
docker run -p 80:80 -p 443:443 -p 3000:3000 
  -e ACCEPTED_TERMS=true 
  -v /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock 
  -v captain-data:/captain 
  caprover/caprover

2. Configure Domain

Point *.apps.yourdomain.com to your server IP (A record)
Open http://your-ip:3000
Set root domain: apps.yourdomain.com
Enable HTTPS for dashboard

3. Deploy an App

Via Web UI:

1. Click "Apps" → "Create New App"
2. Enter app name → "Create"
3. Upload source code or Docker image
4. App is live at https://app-name.apps.yourdomain.com

Via CLI:

npm install -g caprover
caprover login
# In your project directory:
caprover deploy

Via captain-definition file:

{
  "schemaVersion": 2,
  "dockerfilePath": "./Dockerfile"
}

4. One-Click Apps

From the web UI, deploy pre-configured apps with one click:

• Databases: PostgreSQL, MySQL, MongoDB, Redis, ClickHouse
• CMS: WordPress, Ghost, Strapi, Directus
• Dev Tools: Gitea, Drone CI, Portainer, Adminer
• Monitoring: Grafana, Prometheus, Netdata
• Communication: Rocket.Chat, Mattermost
• And 100+ more

Key Features

App Configuration (Web UI)

App: my-api
├── HTTP Settings
│   ├── Enable HTTPS ✅ (auto Let's Encrypt)
│   ├── Force HTTPS ✅
│   ├── Container Port: 8080
│   └── Custom domain: api.mysite.com
├── App Configs (Environment Variables)
│   ├── DATABASE_URL: postgres://...
│   ├── REDIS_URL: redis://...
│   └── SECRET_KEY: ***
├── Deployment
│   ├── Instance Count: 3 (horizontal scaling)
│   ├── Deploy via: Git, Tarball, Docker Image
│   └── Captain Definition file
└── Persistent Directories
    └── /app/data → managed volume

Docker Compose Deployment

# captain-definition
{
  "schemaVersion": 2,
  "dockerComposeFileContent": "version: '3'
services:
  web:
    image: nginx
    ports:
      - 80:80"
}

CI/CD Integration

# GitHub Actions
- name: Deploy to CapRover
  uses: caprover/deploy-from-github@v1
  with:
    server: https://captain.apps.yourdomain.com
    app: my-app
    token: ${{ secrets.CAPROVER_TOKEN }}

CapRover vs Alternatives

FAQ

Q: Should I pick CapRover or Dokku? A: CapRover has a nice web UI and a one-click app marketplace — great for users who prefer a GUI. Dokku is CLI-only and closer to the Heroku experience, better for DevOps engineers. Features are comparable.

Q: Is one server enough? A: More than enough for small projects. CapRover supports Docker Swarm, so you can add worker nodes when you need to scale. A single 2 GB RAM VPS can run 3–5 small apps.

Q: How do I back up CapRover? A: Back up the /captain volume (which holds configs and nginx settings). Databases need separate backups (pg_dump, etc.). App code is already backed up via your Git repos.

Sources & Credits

• GitHub: caprover/caprover — 15K+ ⭐ | Apache-2.0
• Website: caprover.com