Migrate from Dokku

Dokku is a single-host “mini-Heroku” — great until you need more than one host. dockmesh is the natural next step if your reason for moving is scale, not PaaS features.

When to migrate

• You’ve outgrown a single Dokku host and need multi-host
• You want git-push deploys + multi-host management
• You need RBAC/SSO (Dokku Pro is paid)
• You want backups managed by the orchestrator

When not to migrate

• You love git-push deploys and don’t need multi-host → stay on Dokku
• Your apps use Dokku’s buildpacks (Heroku buildpacks) and you don’t want to Dockerize → stay on Dokku

dockmesh is not a buildpack-based PaaS. You need Dockerfiles.

Step 1 — Dockerize your apps

If your Dokku apps are Docker-based already (dokku builder-dockerfile:set), skip this step.

If they use Herokuish/buildpacks, convert:

# Example for a Node.js app
FROM node:20-alpine AS build
WORKDIR /app
COPY package*.json ./
RUN npm ci
COPY . .
RUN npm run build

FROM node:20-alpine
WORKDIR /app
COPY --from=build /app ./
EXPOSE 3000
CMD ["node", "server.js"]

Test locally:

docker build -t myapp .
docker run -p 3000:3000 myapp

Do this for each app. The compose.yaml comes next.

Step 2 — Install dockmesh

On a new host (or your existing Dokku host — they coexist):

curl -fsSL https://get.dockmesh.dev | bash

Step 3 — Convert Dokku apps to Compose stacks

Each Dokku app becomes a dockmesh stack. A simple one:

services:
  app:
    image: ghcr.io/yourorg/myapp:latest
    restart: unless-stopped
    environment:
      DATABASE_URL: ${DATABASE_URL}
      NODE_ENV: production
    depends_on: [db]

  db:
    image: postgres:16
    restart: unless-stopped
    environment:
      POSTGRES_PASSWORD: ${DB_PASSWORD}
    volumes:
      - db_data:/var/lib/postgresql/data

volumes:
  db_data:

For Dokku apps with attached databases (dokku postgres:link), add the DB as a service in the same compose file (as above).

Step 4 — Migrate data

PostgreSQL databases

# On Dokku host
dokku postgres:export myapp-db > myapp-db.sql

# Copy to dockmesh host
scp myapp-db.sql dockmesh-host:/tmp/

# Restore
docker exec -i myapp_db_1 psql -U postgres < /tmp/myapp-db.sql

Persistent storage

Dokku’s /storage mount becomes a named volume:

# On Dokku host
tar czf myapp-storage.tar.gz -C /var/lib/dokku/data/storage/myapp .

# On dockmesh host
docker volume create myapp_storage
docker run --rm -v myapp_storage:/data -v /tmp/myapp-storage.tar.gz:/src.tar.gz alpine \
  tar xzf /src.tar.gz -C /data

Then in compose:

services:
  app:
    volumes:
      - myapp_storage:/app/storage

volumes:
  myapp_storage:
    external: true

Step 5 — Domains + TLS

Dokku uses nginx + Let’s Encrypt. dockmesh uses Caddy.

For each app in dockmesh:

1. Stack detail → Proxy → Add route
2. Domain: same as Dokku (e.g. myapp.example.com)
3. Target: the app’s container
4. TLS: Automatic

DNS doesn’t need to change if the dockmesh host IP is the same. If different, update DNS before cutting over.

Step 6 — Git push deploys (optional)

Dokku’s killer feature is git push dokku main. Replicate it with:

Option A: dockmesh Git integration

Configure the stack as Git-backed: dockmesh polls a Git repo for compose.yaml changes + image tag updates.

Option B: CI builds, dockmesh deploys

Use GitHub Actions or GitLab CI to:

1. Build on push
2. Push image to registry
3. Call dockmesh API to redeploy

Result: git push still triggers a production deploy. More machinery, more flexible.

Step 7 — Retire Dokku

Once all apps migrated and traffic cutover via DNS:

# On the old Dokku host, remove Dokku itself (if dedicated machine)
apt remove dokku
rm -rf /var/lib/dokku

Keep the host around for a week as rollback. Delete once confident.

Dokku features dockmesh doesn’t have

• Buildpacks — you need Dockerfiles
• dokku logs --tail from CLI — use UI or docker logs via SSH
• dokku config:set — use dockmesh UI env vars (arguably better)
• dokku ps:scale web=3 — dockmesh has Scaling with similar semantics
• Plugin ecosystem — dockmesh has fewer plugins (it’s a different architecture)

Features Dokku doesn’t have

• Multi-host
• RBAC + SSO
• Audit log
• Backup target types beyond local
• Prometheus metrics
• Web UI (Dokku has the commercial Dokku Pro for this)

See also

• GitHub Actions — git-push-to-deploy pipeline
• Multi-Host — the reason you’re migrating
• Stack Templates — reuse common app patterns