Questions
people actually ask.

Yes. There is no paid tier, no "pro" SKU, no hidden limits. The entire source is on GitHub under AGPL-3.0. You can install it on a single home-lab host or a 500-host fleet — the code is identical, the license is identical, the price is $0.

If you self-host dockmesh for yourself, your team, or your internal customers, AGPL-3.0 is essentially identical to MIT or Apache — you can use it however you want. The AGPL clause only kicks in if you fork dockmesh and offer the forked version as a hosted SaaS product to third parties — in that case, you must publish your modifications. Normal usage is unaffected.

No plans for one. If maintainers burn out or the project needs funding, GitHub Sponsors is the first step. Core features will never be paywalled. If that ever changes, the AGPL license guarantees you can always fork the last free version.

Absolutely. dockmesh sends no telemetry and phones no home. The only outbound traffic it makes is what you explicitly configure — ACME/Let's Encrypt if you enable embedded Caddy, SMTP for email alerts, OIDC calls to your identity provider. All of that is optional. Download the binary on a connected machine, move it to your air-gapped host, and you're done.

Not directly. dockmesh manages Docker hosts and fleets — the "between raw Docker and full Kubernetes" sweet spot. If you need pod scheduling, Service meshes, and HPA/VPA, use Kubernetes (Rancher is excellent for managing K8s). If you want to manage 10–500 Docker hosts with Compose stacks, dockmesh fits that shape exactly.

SQLite by default — one file in ./data/dockmesh.db, no separate process to manage. For teams with existing PostgreSQL infrastructure, PostgreSQL is also supported. Both are production-ready.

Linux (amd64 or arm64), Docker 20.10+ with API 1.41+, ~50 MB disk for the binary + data, ~30 MB memory baseline (scales with container count). Runs on a Raspberry Pi 3 and upwards.

Partially. dockmesh talks directly to the Docker SDK — if your Podman setup exposes a Docker-compatible socket (podman-docker package), it works. Full Podman support isn't a priority on the roadmap but contributions are welcome.

Agents connect outbound-only over mTLS. The dockmesh server runs its own internal certificate authority and issues short-lived per-agent certificates (30 days, auto-rotated). You can revoke any host instantly — the next handshake is rejected. No inbound ports are ever required on agent hosts.

dockmesh reads plain Docker Compose files from disk, so migration is usually just "copy the compose.yaml into the stacks directory". For step-by-step walkthroughs see the Portainer migration guide or the Docker Compose migration guide. Running containers started with docker run can be imported via the converter in the UI.

You have the source. You have your data (compose.yaml files on disk, SQLite database). You can fork the repo, keep running the last release, or migrate to another tool at any time. There is no license server to check in with, no vendor that can brick your install. That's the point of open-source infrastructure tooling.

dockmesh is community-supported — no commercial support tier. Ask questions on GitHub Discussions (other users can help too, and answers stay searchable for everyone), report bugs on GitHub Issues, and send security disclosures to security@dockmesh.dev. Maintainers do this in their spare time, so please be patient — but every issue gets read.

Yes. The repo is on GitHub. PRs welcome for bug fixes, new features, docs improvements, translations, or anything else. For larger changes, open an Issue first to discuss direction.