The self-hosted Netlify alternative you own
AppCrane runs full apps, each in its own Docker container, on a server you own, and its MCP server runs on that same box, so your agent's deploys, rollbacks and secret changes stay on infrastructure you control.
Netlify builds and serves sites and serverless functions on its own platform, billed in plan credits that production deploys, compute, bandwidth and web requests draw down. Its MCP server lets an agent create and deploy Netlify projects and manage their environment variables; team SAML SSO is an Enterprise feature.
| AppCrane | Netlify | |
|---|---|---|
| Where it runs | A server you own — any Ubuntu box | Netlify's platform and CDN |
| 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 Netlify's platform |
| Pricing model | Free and open source on a server you already pay for — no per-seat, per-request or bandwidth metering | Credit-based: each production deploy, compute (GB-hours), bandwidth (GB) and web requests consume plan credits; a free plan exists |
| 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-triggered builds on Netlify; rolling back to an earlier production deploy uses no credits |
| 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 | Netlify's MCP server (remote or local): create, manage and deploy projects, manage environment variables and secrets |
| Single sign-on | SAML 2.0, OIDC and SCIM in the AGPL-3.0 build, nothing to activate | Team SAML SSO on Enterprise plans |
| Isolation & TLS | Per-app Docker containers, auto-HTTPS via Caddy | Netlify's CDN and serverless 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 | Team audit log on Pro and Enterprise plans |
Netlify 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.