Pyo vs Portainer
Pyo builds, deploys, scales and backs up your services for you, on your own servers and from one dashboard. Here's how it compares, feature by feature.
| Feature | Pyo | Portainer |
|---|---|---|
| Deploying | ||
| Deploy from Git | Yes: On every push | Yes: Stacks from a Git repository |
| Deploy any container image | Yes: Yes | Yes: Yes |
| Zero-config builds | Yes: Detects your framework | No: Needs a Dockerfile or an image |
| Zero-downtime deploys | Yes: With 2 or more replicas | Partly: Swarm rolling updates |
| One-click rollback | Yes: To any earlier version | Partly: Swarm services, to the previous version |
| Automatic rollback | Yes: A failed deploy undoes itself | Partly: Through Swarm update settings |
| Health checks | Yes: HTTP, TCP or command | Yes: Docker health checks |
| Deploy hooks | Yes: A secret URL for CI | Partly: Services. Stacks on Business Edition |
| Cron jobs | Yes: With run history and failure alerts | Partly: Edge jobs, for Edge environments |
| One-click templates | Yes: Databases, tools and apps | Yes: App and custom templates |
| Scaling | ||
| Autoscaling | Yes: On CPU and memory, from min to max | No: Not for Docker or Swarm |
| Replicas across servers | Yes: As many as your servers fit, from the dashboard | Partly: With Docker Swarm |
| Databases that fail over | Yes: Postgres, MySQL and KV, with replicas on other servers | No: Runs your containers. No built-in databases |
| Services move if a server fails | Yes: Stateless services, automatically | Partly: With Docker Swarm |
| Clusters | Yes: Built in from the start | Partly: Docker Swarm |
| Multiple servers | Yes: Joined over Tailscale | Yes: Through the Portainer agent |
| CPU and memory limits | Yes: For every service | Yes: Yes |
| Traffic | ||
| Web application firewall | Yes: OWASP and custom rules, off by default | No: Not built in |
| Observability | ||
| Analytics | Yes: No script to add | No: Not built in |
| CPU and memory metrics | Yes: Servers and services, no Prometheus | Yes: Container stats |
| Live logs | Yes: Yes | Yes: Yes |
| Terminal into a service | Yes: From the dashboard | Yes: Container console |
| Security | ||
| Encrypted secrets | Yes: A separate key for each team | Partly: Swarm secrets |
| Network isolation | Yes: Between projects | Partly: Docker networks |
| External secret stores | Yes: Vault, OpenBao, Infisical, AWS, GCP, Azure and Doppler | No: Not built in |
| Team roles | Yes: Owner, admin, developer and viewer | Partly: Full roles on Business Edition |
| Scoped API keys | Yes: Read, deploy or full, per team | Partly: Per user, with that user's access |
| Automation | ||
| CLI | Yes: Yes | Partly: Through the API or Terraform |
| API | Yes: Yes | Yes: Yes |
| MCP for AI assistants | Yes: 131 tools, covering the whole API | Yes: Yes |
| Data | ||
| Persistent volumes | Yes: Yes | Yes: Yes |
| Scheduled backups | Yes: Volumes and databases. Volumes are encrypted and restore in one click | Partly: Portainer's settings, on Business Edition |
| Your own S3 bucket | Yes: Yes | Partly: Settings backups, on Business Edition |
Based on Portainer's public docs, checked November 9, 2026. Features and plans change, so check their site for the latest. Portainer is a trademark of its owner. Pyo isn't affiliated with or endorsed by Portainer.
Get Pyo running on your server
Run Pyo on any machine, from your laptop or VPS to a dedicated server or homelab.
curl -fsSL https://pyo.dev/install.sh | bash