- Uncloud creates a Docker cluster with self-configuring WireGuard mesh, zero-downtime
- deploys, cross-machine scaling, automatic HTTPS via Caddy, service discovery, and an
- intuitive CLI.
- Everything you need to run web apps on cloud VMs or your own hardware, using
- familiar Compose files. Without cluster-management overhead.
-
-
- A simpler alternative to
- Kubernetes,
- Swarm,
- Nomad, and
- Kamal.
-
- Creator of CoreDNS · ex-Google SRE · Radboud University
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
- Create a cluster
-
-
- Turn any Linux machines into a Docker cluster
-
-
- Uncloud creates a lightweight decentralised cluster of Docker hosts that share their
- state peer-to-peer. The cluster keeps running even if some machines go down.
-
- Each machine joins a secure WireGuard mesh network, so services can talk to each other
- across machines.
-
-
-
-
- Mix cloud VMs and bare-metal servers
-
-
-
- No control plane or quorum to maintain
-
-
-
- Cheap enough to run a cluster per team, project, or client
-
-
-
- SSH is all you need
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
$uc machine init --name prod-1 root@137.123.45.67
-...
-✔ Docker installed and configured
-✔ Uncloud machine daemon installed and started
-Cluster initialised with machine prod-1 and saved as context default
-in your local config (~/.config/uncloud/config.yaml)
-
-$uc machine add --name prod-2 ubuntu@65.21.45.67
-...
-✔ Uncloud machine daemon installed and started
-Machine prod-2 joined the cluster.
-
-$uc machine ls
-NAME STATE ADDRESS PUBLIC IP WIREGUARD ENDPOINTS
-prod-1 Up 10.210.0.1/24 137.123.45.67 10.0.0.95:51820, 137.123.45.67:51820
-prod-2 Up 10.210.1.1/24 65.21.45.67 192.168.40.243:51820, 65.21.45.67:51820
-
-
-
-
-
- “In my opinion, Swarm is dead, Nomad is not anymore a free software since it was
- bought by IBM. So the only robust alternative to the bloat of K8s is Uncloud.”
-
- Deploy with the simplicity of Heroku or Fly.io while keeping full control over your
- infrastructure.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
- Your infrastructure
-
-
-
-
-
-
- Full control over your servers and data
-
-
-
- Predictable costs without per-request pricing
-
-
-
- No vendor lock-in or platform dependencies
-
-
-
- SSH into machines and debug with standard tools
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
Familiar Docker Compose
- workflow
-
-
-
-
-
- Build, push, and deploy with one command
-
-
-
- No image registry required
-
-
-
- Zero-downtime rolling deployments
-
-
-
- Scale replicas across machines
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
Low maintenance
-
-
-
-
-
- No control plane or quorum to manage
-
-
-
- Secure cross-machine communication without opening ports
-
-
-
- Services find each other automatically
-
-
-
- Automatic HTTPS via Let's Encrypt
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
- How it works
-
-
- Simple by design,
- powerful in practice
-
-
- Uncloud replaces complex clusters with a simple network of machines working
- seamlessly together — no maintenance overhead, just reliable infrastructure.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
- Secure private network
-
-
- Each machine joins a WireGuard mesh network with automatic peer discovery
- and NAT traversal. Containers get unique IPs and can communicate directly
- across machines.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
- Fully decentralised
-
-
- Unlike traditional orchestrators, there's no central control plane to
- maintain. Each machine maintains a synchronised copy of the cluster
- state
- through peer-to-peer communication, keeping cluster operations
- functional
- even if some machines go offline.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
- Smart CLI
-
-
- Control your entire infrastructure using intuitive Docker-like commands from
- anywhere. Deploy, monitor, and scale applications across all your machines
- while the CLI only needs SSH access to a single machine.
-
- Self-host and scale web apps
- without the complexity
+ Multi-machine Docker Compose for production
- Take your Docker Compose apps to production with zero-downtime deployments, automatic
- HTTPS, and cross-machine scaling. No Kubernetes required.
+ Uncloud creates a Docker cluster with self-configuring WireGuard mesh, zero-downtime
+ deploys, cross-machine scaling, automatic HTTPS via Caddy, service discovery, and an
+ intuitive CLI.
+ Everything you need to run web apps on cloud VMs or your own hardware, using
+ familiar Compose files. Without cluster-management overhead.
+
+
+ A simpler alternative to
+ Kubernetes,
+ Swarm,
+ Nomad, and
+ Kamal.
+ Creator of CoreDNS · ex-Google SRE · Radboud University
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
- How it works
-
-
- Simple by design,
- powerful in practice
-
-
- Uncloud replaces complex clusters with a simple network of machines working
- seamlessly together — no maintenance overhead, just reliable infrastructure.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
- Secure private network
-
-
- Each machine joins a WireGuard mesh network with automatic peer discovery
- and NAT traversal. Containers get unique IPs and can communicate directly
- across machines.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
- Fully decentralised
-
-
- Unlike traditional orchestrators, there's no central control plane to
- maintain. Each machine maintains a synchronised copy of the cluster
- state
- through peer-to-peer communication, keeping cluster operations
- functional
- even if some machines go offline.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
- Smart CLI
-
-
- Control your entire infrastructure using intuitive Docker-like commands from
- anywhere. Deploy, monitor, and scale applications across all your machines
- while the CLI only needs SSH access to a single machine.
-
+ Uncloud creates a lightweight decentralised cluster of Docker hosts that share their
+ state peer-to-peer. The cluster keeps running even if some machines go down.
+
+ Each machine joins a secure WireGuard mesh network, so services can talk to each other
+ across machines.
+
+
+
+ Mix cloud VMs and bare-metal servers
+
+
+
+ No control plane or quorum to maintain
+
+
+
+ Cheap enough to run a cluster per team, project, or client
+
+
+
+ SSH is all you need
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
$uc machine init --name prod-1 root@137.123.45.67
+...
+✔ Docker installed and configured
+✔ Uncloud machine daemon installed and started
+Cluster initialised with machine prod-1 and saved as context default
+in your local config (~/.config/uncloud/config.yaml)
+
+$uc machine add --name prod-2 ubuntu@65.21.45.67
+...
+✔ Uncloud machine daemon installed and started
+Machine prod-2 joined the cluster.
+
+$uc machine ls
+NAME STATE ADDRESS PUBLIC IP WIREGUARD ENDPOINTS
+prod-1 Up 10.210.0.1/24 137.123.45.67 10.0.0.95:51820, 137.123.45.67:51820
+prod-2 Up 10.210.1.1/24 65.21.45.67 192.168.40.243:51820, 65.21.45.67:51820
+
+
+
+
+ “In my opinion, Swarm is dead, Nomad is not anymore a free software since it was
+ bought by IBM. So the only robust alternative to the bloat of K8s is Uncloud.”
+
+ Deploy local Compose to production with one command
+
+
+ Run uc deploy with your standard compose.yaml. It builds the
+ images, pushes them straight to your machines (transferring only the missing layers),
+ and shows a plan of exactly what will change. Confirm, and it rolls out with zero
+ downtime. And all this takes seconds.
+
+
+
+
+ Standard Compose format, no new spec to learn
+
+
+
+ No registry to set up, pay for, or authenticate against. Powered by
+ Unregistry
+
+
+
+ Terraform-style plan: review every change before applying
+
+
+
+ Zero-downtime rolling updates with health checks
+
+
+
+ Run locally or in your CI/CD pipelines
+
+
+
+
+
+ “Uncloud checks almost all the boxes for me: an imperative push model,
+ Compose Specification, WireGuard out of the box, Caddy out of the box, Unregistry
+ (a big one), and a great CLI UX with excellent documentation.”
+
$cat compose.yaml
+services:
+ web:
+ build: .
+ scale: 2
+
+$uc deploy
+[+] Building 1/1
+ ✔app/web:2026-04-23-053642.833b6c1Built
+
+[+] Pushing imageapp/web:2026-04-23-053642.833b6c1to cluster 2/2
+ ✔ Pushing app/web:2026-04-23-053642.833b6c1 to prod-1Pushed
+ ✔ Pushing app/web:2026-04-23-053642.833b6c1 to prod-2Pushed
+
+Deployment plan
+~ update service web
+ │ ~ image: app/web:2026-04-10-070838.07e380b → 2026-04-23-053642.833b6c1
+ │ replicas: 2
+ ├── +/- replace container web/2de0ebf7eld5 on prod-1
+ ╰── +/- replace container web/4c908f74ced5 on prod-2
+───────────────────────────────────────────
+2 replace (start-first) · across 2 machines
+
+Proceed with deployment?[y/N] y
+
+[+] Deploying 4/4
+ ✔ Container web/5e2becd8ba1b on prod-1Healthy
+ ✔ Container web/2de0ebf7eld5 on prod-1Removed
+ ✔ Container web/c086013b5879 on prod-2Healthy
+ ✔ Container web/4c908f74ced5 on prod-2Removed
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+ Publish
+
+
+ Connect and publish your services
+
+
+ Services on different machines reach each other by name over a private WireGuard mesh,
+ so your database never needs a public port. Publish the ones that should be public, and
+ the integrated Caddy handles HTTPS automatically.
+
+
+
+
+ Cross-machine communication and load balancing
+
+
+
+ Caddy keeps its config up to date on any container change
+
+
+
+ Certificates issued and renewed automatically
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+ compose.yaml
+
+
services:
+ web:
+ build: .
+ environment:
+ # Reach db on another machine by its service name.
+ DATABASE_URL: postgres://db:5432/app
+ # Uncloud-specific extension to publish via the Caddy ingress.
+ x-ports:
+ - app.example.com:8080/https
+ scale: 2# Two replicas spread across machines.
+
+ db:
+ image: postgres:18
+ volumes:
+ - db-data:/var/lib/postgresql
+
+
+
+
+ “Before Uncloud, I was already using Wireguard, Caddy and docker-compose.
+ Now I just have a simpler way to set it up and have it all be almost-automatically
+ managed, plus I get DNS resolution for microservices for free.”
+
+ Run more replicas spread across machines for high availability. If a machine goes
+ down, the remaining replicas keep serving requests. Need capacity? Add a machine.
+ Retiring one? Remove it and redeploy.
+
+
+ Nothing scales or reschedules on its own. It's predictable, boring infrastructure
+ for your peace of mind.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
$uc machine add --name prod-3 root@201.45.91.123
+...
+Machine prod-3 joined the cluster.
+
+$uc scale web 3
+Scaling plan
+~ update service web
+ │ ~ replicas: 2 → 3
+ ╰── + run container web on prod-3
+───────────────────────────
+1 create · across 1 machine
+
+Proceed with scaling?[y/N] y
+
+$uc ls
+NAME MODE REPLICAS ENDPOINTS
+caddy global 3
+db replicated 1
+web replicated 3 https://app.example.com → :8080
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+ Troubleshoot
+
+
+ Troubleshoot with tools you already know
+
+
+ When something breaks, use uc to list containers, read logs, and inspect
+ both the WireGuard network and the live Caddy config. Or SSH in and use the familiar
+ Docker and Linux tools. It's just Docker, WireGuard and Caddy underneath, exactly as
+ you'd expect.
+
+
+
+
+ “It's all built on top of simple and familiar technologies. … This
+ gives me confidence that if something goes wrong, I will be able to debug myself.
+ I cannot say the same for SwarmKit or etcd.”
+
+
+
+ How is this different from Docker Swarm?
+
+
+
+ Swarm needs a Raft quorum of manager nodes and has been in maintenance mode for
+ years. Uncloud has no control plane at all. Machines sync state peer to peer, and
+ any subset keeps working. You also get WireGuard networking across clouds and even
+ behind NAT, automatic HTTPS via Caddy, and image push without a registry. Swarm
+ gives you none of that out of the box.
+
+
+
+
+
+ What happens when a machine goes down?
+
+
+
+ The rest of the cluster keeps working. There's no control plane to lose, and
+ healthy replicas on other machines keep serving traffic. Uncloud deliberately
+ doesn't auto-reschedule containers. You decide when to replace the machine and
+ redeploy, so nothing unpredictable happens without your control.
+
+
+
+
+
+ Will it replace my CI/CD?
+
+
+
+ No, and that's deliberate. uc
+ is just a CLI that connects to your cluster over SSH. Run uc deploy
+ locally or in GitHub Actions to integrate with existing workflows.
+ There are no agents to install and no pipelines to migrate.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+ Ready to make deploying to your own servers fun?
+
- 
- 
- 
+