The self-hosted Cloudflare Pages alternative you own
AppCrane runs full apps, not only functions at the edge, on a server you own, with a managed database next to each app, GitHub-native deploys and an MCP server so your AI agent ships it.
Cloudflare Pages deploys sites and Pages Functions to Cloudflare's global network, and Cloudflare's own docs now say to start new projects with Workers. Pages Functions are billed as Workers, on requests and CPU time, and requests for static assets are free.
| AppCrane | Cloudflare Pages | |
|---|---|---|
| Where it runs | A server you own — any Ubuntu box | Cloudflare's global network |
| 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 | On Cloudflare's network |
| Pricing model | Free and open source on a server you already pay for — no per-seat, per-request or bandwidth metering | Pages Functions billed as Workers (requests and CPU time), with a Workers Free plan; static asset requests are free |
| 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 | Git integration or direct upload; roll back to a previous production deployment |
| 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 | Cloudflare-run remote MCP servers, including one that covers the full Cloudflare API |
| Single sign-on | SAML 2.0, OIDC and SCIM in the AGPL-3.0 build, nothing to activate | Dashboard SSO, free on all plans |
| Isolation & TLS | Per-app Docker containers, auto-HTTPS via Caddy | Cloudflare Workers runtime for Pages Functions |
| 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 | Audit logs on all plans: logins and configuration changes |
Cloudflare Pages is a good fit when you want someone else to own the servers. 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.