Coolify is a genuinely good open-source deployer — for people willing to provision, patch, and monitor the server it runs on. Freehold is the same one-click deploy experience with none of that operational weight, plus Tor by default.
Coolify is software you install and operate on your own machine — updates, uptime, and backups are on you. Freehold runs the infrastructure; you never touch a server.
Every Freehold app ships with a private .onion address by default. Coolify has no built-in Tor routing.
One-click apps on Freehold deploy with no provider or region to pick, and a pre-set size. Coolify still requires you to provision and size the server it runs on.
| Feature | Freehold | Coolify |
|---|---|---|
| Who operates the server | Freehold — fully managed | you — self-hosted |
| Billing model | Hourly, capped monthly | free software; your server costs |
| Tor .onion address | ✓ | — |
| One-click app templates | 300+ | 50+ |
| Network protocols | HTTP, TCP, UDP | HTTP-focused |
| GitHub push-to-deploy | ✓ | ✓ |
| Server maintenance | none — Freehold handles it | yours to patch and monitor |
| License | proprietary, managed service | open source, self-run |
Coolify is open source and self-hosted — it has no central account system, so "identity check" doesn't apply to it the way it does to hosted platforms.
No credit card required to start. No ID, ever. Same one-click deploys, no machine to maintain.