Hatchbox vs Kamal
Kamal-style deploys, without becoming the ops team
Kamal and Hatchbox share the same philosophy: run your apps on servers you own, at raw hosting prices. The difference is who does the operations work — you, or us.
Includes a 7 day free trial. $10 per server per month after that — unlimited apps.
Let's be clear up front: Kamal is good software. It's free, open source, maintained by
37signals, and it ships in every new Rails app. Zero-downtime deploys through kamal-proxy,
automatic SSL, rollbacks — once it's running, kamal deploy is genuinely smooth.
The catch is everything around it. kamal setup installs Docker on your server
and stops there. Firewall rules, security updates, database backups, cron jobs, log
rotation, monitoring, team access — Kamal deliberately leaves all of it to you. You'll
also maintain a Dockerfile, a config/deploy.yml, a container registry, and
a secrets setup before your first deploy.
Hatchbox handles that whole layer. No Docker, no registry, no config files — point it at a GitHub repo and a fresh Ubuntu server, and it detects your framework, provisions and hardens the server, and runs zero-downtime deploys with databases, backups, cron, and logs managed from a dashboard your whole team can use.
Who handles what
Both tools deploy to servers you own. Here's where the responsibility actually lands for everything else.
| Task | With Kamal | With Hatchbox |
|---|---|---|
| Server provisioning & hardening | You — kamal setup installs Docker, nothing else. Firewall, fail2ban, and security updates are on you. | Provisioned and hardened for you, with unattended security updates. |
| Deploy configuration | You write and maintain a Dockerfile and config/deploy.yml. | None. Hatchbox detects your framework from the repo. |
| Container registry | Required — Docker Hub, GHCR, or ECR, plus credential management. | Not needed. No Docker involved. |
| Zero-downtime deploys | Included via kamal-proxy. | Included — release directories with a phased web server restart. |
| SSL certificates | Included via Let's Encrypt. | Included via Let's Encrypt. |
| Databases | Run Postgres or Redis yourself as accessory containers — persistence and networking included in the fine print. | Postgres, MySQL, and Redis installed and managed on your servers. |
| Database backups | None built in. Roll your own cron container to S3. | Scheduled backups to S3-compatible storage, built in. |
| Cron jobs | You manage them on the server. | Managed from the dashboard, synced on every deploy. |
| Logs | CLI tail only (kamal app logs). | Streaming logs in the dashboard, per app and per process. |
| Team access | Whoever has SSH keys and the secrets can deploy. | Invite unlimited teammates with account-level access control. |
| Deploy UI & history | None — Kamal is CLI-only by design. | Web dashboard with deploy history, one-click rollbacks, and GitHub push-to-deploy. |
| Support | Community — GitHub issues and forums. | Real humans who've deployed thousands of Rails apps. |
| Price | Free, plus your time. | $10/server/month, unlimited apps. |
Which one should you pick?
Kamal is a great fit if…
- You're comfortable with Docker, Linux hardening, and being on call for your own infrastructure
- You want zero tooling cost and full control over every layer
- You have (or are) an ops person who'll own backups, monitoring, and security updates
- You're deploying to a fleet where custom Docker builds are already part of the workflow
Hatchbox is a better fit if…
- You'd rather ship features than write Dockerfiles and debug health checks
- You want database backups, cron, and logs handled without building them yourself
- Your team needs a dashboard and access control, not shared SSH keys
- You want a human to ask when a deploy goes sideways at 3am
A common path we see: teams try Kamal because it's free and Rails-blessed, get their app deployed, then discover the steady state means owning firewall rules, backup scripts, and registry auth forever. The tool is free — the ops role isn't. Hatchbox's $10/server buys exactly the layer Kamal leaves out, and you keep full SSH access to servers that are still yours.
What customers say
I run 15+ Rails apps and static sites with Hatchbox. My bill went from $400/month on Heroku to $28/mo with Hatchbox & DigitalOcean combined.
Donn Felker
Software Professional
If you want the most bang for your buck, Hatchbox / Hetzner / DigitalOcean is the killer combo. You can throw sooo much at this and it's crazy how inexpensive it is.
Josh Pigford
Serial Entrepreneur
- Applications deployed
- 24,000+
- Deployments run
- 2 million+
- Deploying since
- 2016
Kamal vs Hatchbox questions
Still stuck? Ask us directly — a real person who has deployed a lot of Rails apps will answer.
config/deploy.yml and the Dockerfile or leave them; Hatchbox ignores them and detects Rails from your Gemfile. Nothing about your app changes.
Simple, predictable pricing.
We charge per server, not per app. Run one application or twenty on the same box — the bill doesn't change.
$10
- Unlimited applications
- Deploy anywhere
- Zero downtime deployments
- Custom domains & free SSL
- Databases, cron jobs & background workers
- Full SSH access to your servers
- Real, human support
- 7 day free trial
Ready to make deployments fun again?
Hatchbox has run more than 2 million deploys across 24,000+ applications since 2016. Start a 7 day free trial and put yours on a server you own.