DockPanel: a Rust server panel that treats Docker as the deployment unit
Modern server management panel built with Rust and React. Sites, databases, Docker apps, Git deploy, mail, DNS, monitoring, backups, and security — all in one panel.
At a glance
- What is it?
- DockPanel is an AGPL-3.0 self-hosted Linux control panel written in Rust with a React front end, covering sites, databases, Docker apps, Git deploy, mail, DNS, monitoring and backups. The interesting question is not the feature list but whether its Docker-native model and its stated memory footprint survive contact with your own server.
- Who is it for?
- DockPanel is aimed at people running a VPS or homelab who want sites, databases and Docker apps managed from one place without a subscription, and who are willing to work on the platforms the README actually lists. It is the wrong pick if you need mail on the RHEL family, if your box uses firewalld and you expect the panel to manage the firewall, or if you want a panel you can relicense or embed without publishing changes.
- Can I use it commercially?
- Yes, with strict conditions. AGPL-3.0 is a network copyleft licence: if people use a modified version over a network, for example as a hosted service, you must offer them its source code under the same licence.
- Is it still maintained?
- Yes. The repository last received commits 6 days ago.
- What is it written in?
- Mainly Rust, according to GitHub's language statistics.
Answers come from the project's GitHub data, last synced on September 15, 2026, and from our analysis. They are not legal advice.
DEEP OPEN-SOURCE ANALYSIS
The gap DockPanel is trying to fill
Most free hosting panels were designed before containers were the default way to ship an application. They manage PHP-FPM pools, virtual hosts and system packages, and Docker support, where it exists, is bolted on. DockPanel inverts that: the README describes it as Docker-native, with 147 one-click app templates across 14 categories, and it treats Git push-to-deploy, per-image CVE scanning with deploy gating, and Infrastructure as Code YAML export as first-class parts of the panel rather than plugins. The stated audience is the person who runs one VPS or a small fleet and wants sites, databases, mail, DNS, monitoring and backups behind a single login without paying a monthly fee. The README also flags a naming collision worth knowing about: this is not the WPF or WinForms DockPanel docking control, and searching for the name without the repository owner will surface the wrong project.
What the Rust and React split actually buys
The panel is written in Rust with a React front end, and the README makes a specific resource claim: panel services run on roughly 49MB of RAM, with a second mention of under 20MB elsewhere in the same document. Those two numbers do not agree, and the README does not reconcile them, so treat the figure as a range you should verify yourself with whatever process monitor you normally use. The comparison table puts HestiaCP at 200MB+ and CloudPanel at 150MB+, but those are the project's own numbers for other people's software and should be read as marketing until you measure. What is verifiable from the repository description is the stack itself: Rust for the backend, React for the UI, AGPL-3.0 licensed, with the default branch on main and releases shipping frequently, including three within roughly a day in early September 2026. The README also cites 840 HTTP routes, 4544 regression assertions and roughly 57MB binaries. Those are counts, not outcomes.
Installing it and what the first screen asks of you
The documented install is a single command: curl -sL https://dockpanel.dev/install.sh | sudo bash. You then open https://YOUR_SERVER_IP:8443 and create the admin account. Without a domain the panel serves a self-signed certificate, so the browser warns once; the README explains this is so the admin password you create is encrypted in transit. Point a domain at the box and pass PANEL_DOMAIN=your.domain to the installer to get a trusted Let's Encrypt certificate instead. Supported systems are Ubuntu 20+, Debian 11+, CentOS 9+, Rocky 9+, AlmaLinux 9+ and Fedora 39+, on x86_64 and ARM64. Piping a remote script into sudo is the part to think about before you run it: you are trusting whatever install.sh serves at that moment, and the README does not describe a checksum or signature step for the script itself. On a machine you care about, fetch it, read it, and run it locally.
Platform limits the README states plainly
The documentation is unusually direct about where the panel does not work. On the RHEL family, the optional-service installers for Redis, Node.js, PowerDNS, WAF and Cloudflare Tunnel work from the panel as of v2.40.0, but the mail server still refuses there. UFW refuses on any firewalld box by design, which means on Rocky, AlmaLinux, CentOS and Fedora you should not expect the panel's firewall screen to manage your rules. Those are hard boundaries, not bugs to wait out, and they change the calculus for anyone standardising on the RHEL family. If mail and firewall management are the two features you came for, Debian or Ubuntu is the path the README implicitly points you toward. The README links docs/getting-started.md#requirements for the full list, and that page is the one to read before you commit a machine.
How the project claims to test itself
The most substantive claim in the README is not about features. It says that before each release DockPanel is installed on a throwaway VPS with a real domain and a real Let's Encrypt certificate, and each journey is driven to the point where a user would get value: mail is not counted as working when it is installed, but when a message is sent to another server and its DKIM signature is checked on arrival. The README says this has repeatedly found features whose setup half worked and whose payoff half had never run, and it links a testing page that lists what was found, including what is still broken. That is a more useful signal than a feature table, and it is also a self-report. The testing page is where you should look for the specific things that are still broken, because the README does not enumerate them inline.
Where a different tool is the better answer
HestiaCP is the obvious comparison and the README puts it in the table. HestiaCP is PHP, has no Docker template catalogue, no blue-green Git deploy, and its reseller support is described as reseller only rather than reseller plus white-label. The difference in approach matters more than the feature gaps: HestiaCP manages the host directly, so a site is an Nginx vhost and a system PHP-FPM pool, while DockPanel's Docker-native model means applications arrive as containers from templates or from your Git repository. If your team already thinks in system packages, Ansible and vhosts, HestiaCP will feel like less machinery. If your deployments are containers and you want the panel to know about images, CVE scanning and zero-downtime swaps, DockPanel's model is the closer fit. CloudPanel is also PHP and, per the same table, has no Docker templates, no Git deploy and no ARM64 support. RunCloud is a hosted service starting around $8 per month, which removes the self-hosting question entirely but also removes your control over where the data lives.
Licence and the cost of staying current
DockPanel is AGPL-3.0. For someone running it on their own server to host their own sites, that is unremarkable. For anyone who wants to offer it as a hosted service, or to embed it in a product, the AGPL's network-use condition is the thing to read carefully, because it can extend source-disclosure obligations to users interacting with the software over a network. This is not legal advice; if you are building a business on top of the panel, take it to someone qualified. On maintenance, the release cadence visible in the material is fast: v2.242.0 and v2.242.1 landed within about an hour of each other on 2026-09-09, with v2.241.0 the day before. Fast releases cut both ways. Fixes arrive quickly, but so do changes, and the README does not describe an LTS branch or a supported upgrade path between major versions. Budget time for reading CHANGELOG.md before each upgrade, and test the upgrade on a snapshot rather than in place.
Editorial conclusion
DockPanel is aimed at people running a VPS or homelab who want sites, databases and Docker apps managed from one place without a subscription, and who are willing to work on the platforms the README actually lists. It is the wrong pick if you need mail on the RHEL family, if your box uses firewalld and you expect the panel to manage the firewall, or if you want a panel you can relicense or embed without publishing changes. Before you install, read docs/getting-started.md#requirements and the testing page it links, then run the install script on a throwaway VPS with a real domain and a real Let's Encrypt certificate, and drive the one journey you actually depend on end to end before you point production traffic at it.
Community notes