Elestio, Coolify, VSHN and Northflank, compared

The alternatives stop before the hard part. Deploying an open-source app is the part that got easy. Keeping it patched, proven and audited inside your own perimeter, for as long as you run it, is the part that did not. Here is where each alternative stops.

The matrix

Thirteen things an open-source estate needs done, and who does them. Every other column is filled in from that vendor's own public pages.

Capability	Elestio	Coolify	VSHN	Northflank	Doing it yourself	Amazon Web Services	Microsoft Azure	Clever Cloud	Exoscale	Infomaniak	Nine	Pilae
Deploy
One-click deploy from a curated cataloguePick the app, name the users, and it is sized, provisioned and running.	Yes	Yes	Partly	No	No	Partly	Partly	Partly	Partly	Partly	Partly	Yes
Migration onto the platform, run for youYour data out of the system it is in today, rehearsed before it is cut over.	No	No	Partly	No	No	Partly	Partly	No	No	Partly	No	Yes
SSO and identity wired into each appKeycloak, Entra ID, Google Workspace or Okta, configured on the app itself.	No	No	Partly	Partly	Partly	Partly	Partly	Partly	No	Partly	Partly	Yes
Keep it current
Updates applied for you, not just announcedThe release is read, staged and applied. You are not the one doing it.	Yes	No	Partly	No	No	Partly	Partly	Partly	Partly	Partly	Partly	Yes
Per-app CVE and advisory trackingThe advisory, the affected version and the fix version, per app you run.	No	No	Partly	No	Partly	Partly	Partly	Partly	No	No	Partly	Yes
Changes land in a window you approvedYour timezone, your hours, agreed before anything is touched.	Partly	No	Yes	No	Partly	Partly	Partly	No	Partly	No	Partly	Yes
Staged and checked before productionThe upgrade runs somewhere safe first, and the checks have to pass.	No	No	No	Yes	Partly	Partly	Partly	Partly	No	No	No	Yes
Prove it
Restore drills, not just backupsThe backup is restored on a schedule, because an untested backup is a hope.	Partly	No	Partly	Partly	Partly	Partly	Partly	Partly	Partly	Partly	Partly	Yes
A record of every restoreWho restored what, from which file, into which service, and whether it worked.	No	No	No	No	No	Partly	Partly	No	No	No	No	Yes
A change log an auditor can readEvery action, the person who took it, the outcome, inside your perimeter.	No	Partly	Partly	Yes	Partly	Partly	Partly	No	Partly	No	No	Yes
See it
Monitoring and alerting on the appsNot just the host: the application, its checks, and someone who answers.	Yes	Partly	Yes	Yes	Partly	Partly	Partly	Partly	Partly	Partly	Yes	Yes
Logs and metrics exported to your stackOpenTelemetry, or straight into the SIEM your security team already runs.	No	No	Partly	Partly	Partly	Yes	Yes	Partly	Partly	No	Partly	Yes
Run it
An agent that operates the estate with youAsk for a change in words; it plans it, shows you, and waits for approval.	No	No	No	No	No	Partly	Partly	Partly	No	No	No	Yes

The five things that actually separate them

Fast deployment

Every alternative here can put an app on a server quickly. This is the dimension where the field is level, and it is worth saying so before the four that follow, where it is not.

Customer-controlled infrastructure

Your own datacentre, your own cloud account, or a site you are named on. More of the field does this than its marketing suggests: Elestio runs on a VM you own, Northflank deploys into your account and onto bare metal, Coolify only ever runs on your servers. What differs is who is accountable for the thing once it is there.

Migration and integration

Getting the data out of the system it is in today, wiring the app to your identity provider, and making it fit the way your organisation already works. No product vendor in this comparison sells this work. The Swiss service providers do, per project, quoted each time.

Ongoing operating ownership

Who answers at two in the morning. Who reads the security advisory, tests the upgrade on a copy, applies it at an hour you agreed, and proves the backup still restores. A panel moves this work to your team rather than removing it; self-serve hosting covers the machine and leaves the application to you.

A repeatable control plane

One pane over every app and every site, with every change written down: what happened, who approved it, what it touched, and whether the restore worked. Not a dashboard of graphs, and not a ticket queue.

The alternatives

Elestio

Managed open-source hosting

Elestio keeps the machine your app runs on alive. Pilae runs the application itself — patched against named advisories, migrated in, wired to your identity, and proven by restore.

Coolify

Self-hosted PaaS panel

Coolify deploys. Pilae operates — advisory tracking per app, updates staged and applied in your window, restores drilled and recorded, and an agent that makes the change when you ask for it.

VSHN

Swiss managed service provider

VSHN operates applications on a platform they run. Pilae operates them on infrastructure you run, with no Kubernetes underneath and no platform skills on your side of the line.

Northflank

Bring-your-own-cloud platform

Northflank gives your engineers a platform in your own cloud. Pilae gives you the open-source estate already operated — advisories tracked, updates staged, restores drilled, logs exported.

Doing it yourself

In-house self-hosting

Self-hosting gives you the apps and the whole job of running them. Pilae gives you the same open-source apps, operated under a contract, on your premises or in Pilae Cloud.

Amazon Web Services

Hyperscale cloud infrastructure and managed services

AWS sells infrastructure and managed services your engineers assemble and run. Pilae operates the open-source apps you choose, on your premises or in any of 10+ Pilae Cloud regions, six of them in Switzerland and the EU, with every change approved and recorded.

Microsoft Azure

Hyperscale cloud, tied to Microsoft 365 and Entra ID

Azure gives a Microsoft shop virtual machines, Kubernetes, managed databases and Azure OpenAI to build on. Pilae takes the open-source apps your teams adopted off that build list and runs them for you, on your own servers or in Zurich, the EU or further afield, and changes nothing you have not approved.

Clever Cloud

French platform as a service

Clever Cloud deploys the code your developers push. Pilae operates the open-source apps your organisation adopted — deployed, updated with your approval, and restore-tested every month.

Exoscale

Swiss and European cloud infrastructure

Exoscale sells European cloud building blocks your engineers assemble. Pilae delivers the open-source apps already operated — deployed, backed up, restore-tested every month and changed only with your approval.

Infomaniak

Swiss cloud provider and collaboration suite

Infomaniak rents you its own Swiss suite and its own Swiss cloud. Pilae operates the open-source apps you choose, on your premises or on dedicated machines, under a contract that names the window, the restore tests and the exit.

Nine

Swiss managed hosting and managed Kubernetes

Nine runs servers and Kubernetes clusters in Zurich and keeps them patched. Pilae operates the open-source apps themselves, on your premises or dedicated machines, with every change approved and recorded.

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