The self-hosted AWS App Runner alternative you own
AppCrane is a self-hosted place to land: GitHub-native deploys, Docker isolation and auto-HTTPS via Caddy on one server you own, driven by your AI agent over MCP.
AWS App Runner builds and runs web services from GitHub, Bitbucket or Amazon ECR on AWS. AWS has closed it to new customers: existing customers keep using it as normal, AWS plans no new features, and it points migrations to Amazon ECS Express Mode.
| AppCrane | AWS App Runner | |
|---|---|---|
| Where it runs | A server you own — any Ubuntu box | AWS, in your account; closed to new customers, with ECS Express Mode recommended instead |
| Where code & data live | On that server; AppCrane sends one anonymous daily install check-in (counts and version, no app data), off with APPCRANE_CHECKIN=off | In your AWS account, on AWS infrastructure |
| Pricing model | Free and open source on a server you already pay for — no per-seat, per-request or bandwidth metering | Per-second billing for active vCPU and memory, provisioned memory while idle, a build fee for source deploys and a monthly fee per app for automatic deployments |
| Deploys | GitHub-native push-to-deploy, zero-downtime releases (start new, health check, swap, drain old), rollback to a kept release that restarts its image instead of rebuilding | Automatic or manual deployments from a source repository or image; no new features planned |
| Agent-native (MCP) | 74 tools on an MCP server on your own box — your AI agent deploys, sets env, reads logs, rolls back and promotes, and each call is audited against its user | AWS MCP Server (AWS-managed): calls AWS APIs with your IAM credentials, logged in CloudTrail |
| Single sign-on | SAML 2.0, OIDC and SCIM in the AGPL-3.0 build, nothing to activate | IAM Identity Center, federated with an external identity provider over SAML 2.0 and SCIM |
| Isolation & TLS | Per-app Docker containers, auto-HTTPS via Caddy | Containers, sized from 0.25 to 4 vCPU |
| Openness | Open source (AGPL-3.0), standard Docker + Caddy — you run the control plane | Vendor-operated managed service |
| Audit | Per-user audit: who deployed what, which environment, when — stored on your server | AWS CloudTrail records every App Runner API call |
AWS App Runner stays available to its existing customers, and AWS recommends Amazon ECS Express Mode for new projects. Choose AppCrane when the apps are agent-built, the agent should do the deploying, and your code, data and audit trail should stay on infrastructure you own. It’s open source — read every line.