DeployHQ deploys to a server you already built and maintain. DeployManage builds that server first, then runs the same atomic release model on top of it, so provisioning, SSL, firewall, queue workers and deployment live behind one login.
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The main reason to pick a DeployHQ alternative is scope. DeployHQ is a deployment tool: it takes a commit and ships it to a server you have already provisioned and are already maintaining yourself. DeployManage provisions that server, installs the stack, issues the certificate and manages the firewall, cron jobs and queue workers, then runs zero downtime releases with one click rollback on top. If your server is already built and managed by something else, DeployHQ is a fine tool and its Solo plan is 9 EUR a month. If nobody is managing the box, you need both halves.
Last updated August 2026
Pick a provider, a region and a size. DeployManage installs nginx, PHP or Node, MySQL or PostgreSQL, Redis, the firewall rules and a Let's Encrypt certificate, then hands you a box that is already ready to receive a release. A deployment only tool starts at step two and assumes somebody else did step one.
Every deploy checks the commit into a fresh timestamped directory, runs the build there, and only then moves the symlink. Traffic never sees a half written directory. The previous release stays where it was, which is what makes a rollback instant instead of a re-deploy of an older commit.
The release is gated on the application answering correctly after the switch, not on a script exiting zero. If the check fails, the symlink goes back and you get told. This is the difference between a green check mark and a site that is genuinely up.
Deployment is a few minutes a day. Everything else is the rest of the year: certificate renewals, supervised queue workers that survive a deploy, scheduled jobs, database backups, PHP version bumps and security updates. Those live in the same panel rather than in a separate tool or in somebody's SSH history.
Each server gets a read only deploy key scoped to one repository, on GitHub, GitLab or Bitbucket. Nobody's personal SSH key and no personal access token ends up living on a production box, and revoking access to one server does not break the others.
Because the previous release directory is untouched, undoing a deploy is a symlink move and a process reload. No waiting on a build, no fighting Git on a server at eleven at night, no reverting a merge just to get the site back.
Connect a cloud account and let it provision a new server, or add an existing VPS you already pay for. Either way the stack gets installed and inventoried, so the panel knows what is actually on the box.
Authorize GitHub, GitLab or Bitbucket and pick the repository and branch. A deploy key is generated for that server, so a private repository works without any personal credential leaving your account.
Whatever you were running in DeployHQ build commands (composer install, npm ci, asset builds, migrations) goes into the deployment script. The commands are the same. What changes is that they run inside a release directory that is not live yet.
Run a deploy to a staging site or a second server first and compare the result. When the release matches, move the production branch across. There is no lock in either direction: the artifacts are ordinary directories on your own server.
All prices below were checked on each vendor's own pricing page, and the DeployHQ and Buddy figures were re-verified on 14 August 2026 with no change since the previous check. DeployHQ and Buddy publish in euro, Ploi publishes both, and GitHub bills usage in dollars. Third party directories often list a converted or outdated dollar figure for DeployHQ, so the euro numbers here are the ones from deployhq.com. RunCloud is a real competitor in this space but does not publish a price we could verify, so it is not in the table rather than being guessed at.
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| DeployManage | DeployHQ | Buddy | Ploi | GitHub Actions plus SSH | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| What it actually is | Server panel and deploy pipeline in one | Deployment tool for servers you already run | Visual CI/CD pipeline platform | Server panel and deploy pipeline in one | A CI runner you script yourself |
| Provisions the server (nginx, PHP, database, SSL) | Yes, on any major cloud or an existing VPS | No, bring your own server | No | Yes | No |
| Ongoing server management (firewall, cron, workers, backups) | Yes | No | No | Yes | No |
| Zero downtime atomic release | Yes, symlinked release directories | Yes | Whatever your pipeline implements | Yes | Only if you write it yourself |
| One click rollback | Yes, previous release stays on disk | Yes | Pipeline dependent | Yes | Only if you write it yourself |
| Repositories supported | GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket | Git plus Mercurial and Subversion | GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket | GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket | GitHub only |
| Non server deploy targets (SFTP, S3, static hosts) | No | Yes | Yes | No | Yes, with more scripting |
| Free plan | Yes, free to start | Yes, 0 EUR | Yes, 1 seat and 300 pipeline GB-minutes | Yes, 1 server, 1 site, 5 deploys a month | Free on public repos, 2,000 minutes a month on Free |
| Entry paid price | Free to start, paid tiers not yet published | 9 EUR a month Solo, 10 day trial | 29 EUR a month Pro | 10 USD a month Basic | Usage billed, from 0.002 USD a Linux minute |
| Best for | Teams who own the servers and want the box and the release in one tool | Teams deploying to many varied targets, including legacy version control | Teams who want to build pipelines visually | Laravel leaning teams on their own VPS | Teams already living in GitHub who want total control |
| Wrong choice when | You only push static files to a host you do not control | Nobody is provisioning or maintaining the server | You wanted a server panel, not a pipeline builder | You need Subversion or SFTP targets | You do not want to own and maintain release scripting |
DeployBot stopped taking new signups and its customers are being consolidated into DeployHQ. Existing DeployBot accounts still work, and DeployHQ offers to migrate projects and server configuration across. A forced tool change is a sensible moment to ask whether a deployment only tool is still the right shape, especially if the servers underneath were never really managed by anything.
A common stack is DeployHQ for releases plus a separate control panel or plain SSH for the servers. That is two bills, two access lists and two places to look when a deploy succeeds but the site is down. Collapsing both into one panel removes the gap where nobody owns the problem.
If your deployment reports success because the last command exited zero, you do not have a health gate. Adding one means the release only becomes live after the application answers correctly, and reverts by itself when it does not.
You have a server somebody else set up, no documentation, and a deploy script you are scared of. Importing it into a panel that inventories the stack, takes over certificate renewal and gives you a release directory model is usually faster than reverse engineering what is there.
Three reasons come up repeatedly, and only one of them is about DeployHQ being bad at its job.
The first is the DeployBot consolidation. DeployBot and DeployHQ have been brought together under one roof. DeployBot no longer accepts new registrations, existing accounts continue to work, and DeployHQ offers assisted migration of projects, servers and configuration. If you were a DeployBot customer, your tool choice was made for you, and a lot of people use that as the prompt to look at the whole category again rather than accept the default path.
The second is scope. DeployHQ is explicitly a deployment product. It takes a commit, runs a build, and ships the result to a target over SSH, SFTP, FTP or to object storage. What it does not do is build or look after the server. It does not install nginx or PHP, it does not issue or renew your certificate, it does not manage your firewall rules, and it does not keep a queue worker supervised across restarts. Those jobs still exist. If nobody has taken them on, you have a deployment pipeline pointed at a server that is slowly rotting.
The third is billing shape. DeployHQ publishes in euro: Free at 0 EUR, Solo at 9 EUR a month, Pro at 19 EUR, Business at 39 EUR and Enterprise at 99 EUR, with a 10 day trial on the paid plans and no card required. That is reasonable for what it is. It becomes less reasonable when it sits next to a separate bill for whatever is managing the servers, because you are paying twice to cover one workflow.
None of this makes DeployHQ a bad tool. It makes it half a stack. The question worth asking is who owns the other half.
These two categories get shelved together and they should not be. The distinction is simple once you see it.
A deployment tool answers one question: how does this commit become the running code? It cares about repositories, branches, build steps, transfer protocols and the moment of the switch. DeployHQ, DeployBot, Buddy, GitHub Actions and Jenkins all live here. They assume a working target exists.
A server management panel answers a longer question: what is on this machine, is it patched, is it reachable, is the certificate valid, are the background jobs running, and where do the backups go? cPanel, Plesk, DirectAdmin and the modern developer panels live here. Historically most of them were bad at deployment, which is exactly why a separate deploy tool existed in the first place.
DeployManage and Ploi both sit in the overlap. You provision the server from the panel, and the same panel runs the release. That means one access list, one audit trail, and no argument about whether a failed deploy was the pipeline's fault or the box's. It also means you can do things a deployment only tool structurally cannot: gate the release on a health check that knows about the process manager, restart supervised workers in the right order after the symlink flips, and roll back the release without touching the certificate or the firewall.
The honest limit runs the other way too. If your deploy target is not a server you control, a panel is the wrong tool. Pushing a static build to S3, syncing over SFTP into shared hosting, or deploying to a client's locked down environment are all things DeployHQ does natively and a server panel does not do at all. Buy the tool that matches where the code has to land.
Prices below were read directly from deployhq.com in August 2026. They are published in euro, not dollars. Several comparison directories quote a converted dollar figure that does not match the vendor's own page, so treat any third party number with suspicion and check the source.
Annual billing shaves roughly one month off each tier, and every paid plan comes with a 10 day free trial that does not ask for a card. What the tiers mostly gate is project count, team seats and concurrency, which is the normal shape for this category.
The number that matters for a comparison is not the DeployHQ line on its own. It is that line plus whatever you are paying to keep the servers alive, plus the hours somebody spends doing it by hand. A 9 EUR deploy tool sitting on top of an unmanaged 40 dollar VPS and four hours a month of somebody's evening is not a 9 EUR solution.
Migrating a deployment pipeline sounds risky and mostly is not, because the artifact at the end is just files in a directory on a server you already own. Do it in this order and production never notices.
If you are coming from DeployBot specifically, note that your account still functions during this, so there is no deadline forcing a rushed cut over. Use that room.
A comparison page that never concedes anything is not worth reading, so here is where we would tell you to stay put.
You deploy to targets that are not servers. DeployHQ ships to SFTP, FTP and object storage as first class targets. If half your projects are static builds going to a bucket or client sites on shared hosting you do not administer, that flexibility is the whole product and a server panel replaces none of it.
You are on Subversion or Mercurial. DeployHQ supports both alongside Git. That is genuinely rare in 2026 and we do not support either. If you have a long lived Subversion repository, this decision is already made.
You need to deploy behind a firewall or into segmented environments. DeployHQ has deployment zones and firewall traversal features built for exactly that shape of network, and it has more mileage in enterprise environments than a newer panel does.
Somebody else already manages your servers well. If you have a platform team, a managed hosting contract or a working Ansible setup that owns provisioning and patching, then the gap DeployManage fills is already filled. Adding a panel on top would just be a second thing with root.
The case for switching is narrower and more specific than most comparison pages admit: you own the servers, nobody is really managing them, and you are currently paying for a deployment tool that was never going to.
One update worth flagging, checked on 14 August 2026: DeployHQ now lists two products in beta, Managed VPS Hosting and Static Hosting, both with pricing still to be announced. That narrows the scope gap described on this page if those products ship and suit you, so it is worth checking their current status rather than taking a comparison written today as permanent. Everything else here reflects the pricing page as published on 14 August 2026: Free at 0 EUR, Solo at 9 EUR, Pro at 19 EUR, Business at 39 EUR and Enterprise at 99 EUR per month, with a 10 day trial and no card required.
It depends on what your deploy target is. If you deploy to servers you own and nobody is managing those servers, a panel that provisions and deploys (DeployManage or Ploi) replaces two tools with one. If you deploy to SFTP, FTP or object storage, stay on DeployHQ or look at Buddy, because a server panel cannot reach those targets at all.
DeployHQ publishes prices in euro on its own pricing page: Free at 0 EUR a month, Solo at 9 EUR, Pro at 19 EUR, Business at 39 EUR and Enterprise at 99 EUR. Paid plans include a 10 day free trial with no credit card required, and annual billing saves roughly one month. Figures verified August 2026.
Yes. DeployHQ offers a Free tier at 0 EUR a month with no credit card required, and the paid tiers add a 10 day trial on top. The free plan is enough to test the deployment model on a small project before committing to Solo or Pro.
DeployBot is being consolidated into DeployHQ rather than switched off. It no longer accepts new registrations, but existing DeployBot accounts continue to work and can be logged into as usual. DeployHQ offers assisted migration of projects, servers and configuration for accounts that move.
No. DeployHQ is a deployment tool and expects you to bring a server that already exists. It does not install nginx, PHP or a database, does not issue or renew SSL certificates, and does not manage firewall rules, cron jobs or queue workers. Those stay your responsibility or another tool's.
A deployment tool moves a commit onto a target: repositories, build steps, transfer and the switch. A server management panel owns the machine itself: the installed stack, certificates, firewall, scheduled jobs, workers and backups. DeployHQ is the first. DeployManage and Ploi do both, which is why they can gate a release on a real health check.
Yes, plenty of teams do, and it works. The cost is two subscriptions, two access lists and an ambiguous boundary when a deploy reports success but the site is down. If the panel already runs atomic releases with rollback, the second tool is usually redundant.
Copy every build command, injected config file and post deploy hook out of the DeployHQ project first, then reproduce them against a staging server in the new tool. Deploy once to production with both tools still connected, confirm the health check passes, and remove the old webhook last so two pipelines never race on the same branch.
Yes. DeployHQ supports zero downtime deployments and one click rollback, which is a large part of why people choose it over a plain SSH script. The difference with a panel is not the release mechanism itself but what happens around it, such as restarting supervised workers and validating the application after the switch.
For deployment specifically, usually yes, because Actions has no built in concept of a release. Actions will run whatever commands you give it and report green whether or not the site is up, so atomic switching, health checks and rollback are code you write and maintain. DeployHQ ships those as product features.
Three things stand out: deploy targets that are not servers (SFTP, FTP and object storage), version control systems beyond Git including Subversion and Mercurial, and deployment into segmented or firewalled networks. If any of those describe your projects, a server panel is not a replacement.
Only if the panel cannot do atomic releases. Traditional hosting panels such as cPanel and Plesk have no release model, so a deploy tool fills a real gap there. Developer panels that build releases into timestamped directories and switch a symlink already cover it, and a second tool adds cost without adding capability.
Provision on the cloud you already use, connect the same repository, and keep the atomic release model you came for, with the firewall, certificates and queue workers handled in the same place.
# free plan · no credit card required