Aptible vs. Dokku

I would recommend Aptible Deploy to my colleagues because of its responsiveness and efficiency for environment and application provisioning. The product is extremely useful for creating health applications due to its built-in security and compliance protocols for HIPAA and HITRUST. The automated database backups were also a nice touch for failover scenarios, as is the included horizontal scaling. The horizontal scaling automatically defaults toward high availability as well.

Incentivized

If you have your own in-house servers or have a cloud server with the freedom to configure any PaaS that you want, then Dokku is for you. So far, I have never run into a scenario where Dokku was not able to fit my needs, after deploying many different types of applications with varying frameworks, languages, and connected services. If you already have a PaaS available, however, Dokku may not be for you.

Incentivized

• Provides insight to container security
• Provides insight to application security
• Shows your compliance and security score
• Gives you information on updates or changes you can make to improve security
• Gives you information on changes you can aid in meeting compliance requirements

• Dockerfile deployments are an incredibly simple and straightforward way to spin up applications.
• The docker-options plugin allows endless direct configuration of options passed to different docker lifecycle stages.

Incentivized

• Implement password-less CLI Auth flow
• Implement Single button full application tear down
• Provide demo application code for a wider array of technologies, frameworks
• Provide ability to deploy into existing network constraints of large organization

• Dokku might overreach on its assumptions about how you want to host your app, using its own VHOSTS plugin by default. This may be a pro or a con depending on what you want.
• Proxy port configuration can be somewhat difficult, with Dokku resetting any pre-deployment configuration to "smart" defaults on the first deployment.

Incentivized

Dokku is incredibly well documented and also takes advantage of the documentation and community of Heroku, being essentially the same thing, but in the case that you encounter an actual bug or issue, it can take time for a fix to make it into a new version. Since you manage Dokku yourself, there is no support team to call for help.

Incentivized

Aptible makes managing HIPAA/HITRUST compliance simpler when compared to Microsoft Azure. Passing audits is technically easier when using Aptible. Aptible provides a log drain to deliver logs via Syslog or HTTPS for long-term log storage. Microsoft Azure does not have a portal specifying when controls are in place, something which Aptible does.

Incentivized

Dokku is essentially the same thing as Heroku, except maintained by you on the platform of your choice. If you have any experience using Heroku, then you will feel right at home using Dokku. Dokku is an entirely free to use PaaS, requiring only that you have a platform to deploy it on, making it far more versatile than Heroku in my opinion.

Incentivized

• Less time in configuring servers. This is essentially a server-less platform.
• Cost savings by using usage-based cloud
• CLI can be scripted to provide full automation, even though a deployment takes about 20 minutes; that time can be even further reduced and spent elsewhere

• Since there's no investment besides a little time to set up, the return has been overwhelmingly positive.
• Deploying a new app is incredibly quick and easy.

Incentivized