Kamal
Deploy web apps anywhere. observed · 2026-10-08
Health v2 · maintenance only
92/100
- Activity 98
- Release rhythm 81
- Longevity 98
How is this computed?
round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10) — computed 2026-10-21. Adoption (stars, forks) is never an input.
- gap_med: 19
- age_days: 1382
- days_rel: 124
- days_push: 13
- n_releases_24m: 18
Adoption not part of the score
14635 stars · 753 forks observed · 2026-10-08
What it is AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, 2026-08-29, confidence not recorded
Kamal is a Ruby-based CLI tool that deploys containerized web apps to any server (bare metal or cloud VMs) over SSH with zero-downtime switching via its companion kamal-proxy. It automates Docker installation, image builds, registry pushes, rolling restarts, rollbacks, and accessory services from a simple config/deploy.yml file.
Use cases
- deploy a Rails app to cheap Hetzner or DigitalOcean VMs with zero downtime
- deploy a Dockerized web app to my own bare metal servers over SSH
- avoid vendor lock-in from Heroku, Fly.io, or Render
- roll back a bad deployment to a previous container version
- manage accessory services like Redis or a database alongside my app
- run rolling restarts and asset bridging across multiple servers
When to choose
- you deploy containerized web apps to plain Ubuntu servers or your own hardware
- you want Heroku-like deploy ergonomics without managed-platform pricing
- you want a simple YAML-driven deploy tool without running Kubernetes
- you're a Rails team wanting a first-party deployment workflow
When to avoid
- you need autoscaling, self-healing, or multi-region orchestration (use Kubernetes)
- your app cannot be containerized with Docker
- you need a fully managed PaaS with no server administration
- you deploy only to serverless platforms
Facets
cli-tool · maturity active
deployment container-runtime developer-tools cli configuration-management web-development self-hosted cloud-computing cli cross-platform zero-downtime-deploys docker ssh rails kamal-proxy bare-metal rolling-deploys devops containers linux macos
9 sources
- readme: https://github.com/basecamp/kamal · fetched 2026-10-08 · 25830360462f
- homepage: https://kamal-deploy.org · fetched 2026-10-19 · 57a630603307
- site_page: https://kamal-deploy.org/docs/hooks/overview · fetched 2026-10-19 · d6b0d44b8bac
- site_page: https://kamal-deploy.org/docs · fetched 2026-10-19 · 2b98f4d10c80
- site_page: https://kamal-deploy.org/docs/installation · fetched 2026-10-19 · da624e4a121e
- site_page: https://kamal-deploy.org/docs/configuration/overview · fetched 2026-10-19 · 232e00dc1d80
- site_page: https://kamal-deploy.org/docs/commands/view-all-commands · fetched 2026-10-19 · 578d8911e6f7
- site_page: https://kamal-deploy.org/docs/upgrading/overview · fetched 2026-10-19 · a0a5b0581d03
- site_page: https://kamal-deploy.org/v1/docs · fetched 2026-10-19 · 56d0e6352432
Member repositories
| Repository | Role | Health v2 |
|---|---|---|
| basecamp/kamal | main | 92 |
| basecamp/kamal-proxy | backend | 70 |
| basecamp/kamal-site | docs | 67 |
For agents
Data as of 2026-10-19T08:05:51.212177+00:00 · Report a problem