This topic came up a few weeks ago and I commented [0] that I started using Coolify (https://coolify.io), an open source self-hosted PaaS that's similar to CapRover and Dokku but in my opinion the developer experience is a lot simpler since it has a GUI unlike Dokku (non-Pro version, anyway) and the deployment was easier than CapRover since it connects directly to your GitHub/GitLab account via their API.
I've used a lot of the alternatives listed here but each one had some drawback or another. In contrast, I got a cheap 5 dollar Hetzner server and it's more powerful than any of what the free options here give you (Hetzner gets you 2 AMD vCPUs and 2 GB RAM), plus unlike AWS I never have to worry about whether I'm gonna randomly pay $10k this month due to a traffic spike. The only thing that was missing before was a good PaaS solution for the server (and I used to use Dokku before primarily) but Coolify solves that neatly.
The part that worries me about managing your own server is the security aspect, it's just a much larger surface area than just running a docker image on fly.io, for example. Do self-hosted PaaS like Coolify/Dokku/CapRover handle this aspect? Or do you still have to take all the steps you'd usually take securing the server?
I've used a lot of the alternatives listed here but each one had some drawback or another. In contrast, I got a cheap 5 dollar Hetzner server and it's more powerful than any of what the free options here give you (Hetzner gets you 2 AMD vCPUs and 2 GB RAM), plus unlike AWS I never have to worry about whether I'm gonna randomly pay $10k this month due to a traffic spike. The only thing that was missing before was a good PaaS solution for the server (and I used to use Dokku before primarily) but Coolify solves that neatly.
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33077118#33077464