FAQ
Straight answers to the questions people ask before and after they start.
On this page
Why not just self-host the Manager?
You’ll be able to — and it’ll be free and AGPL v3. Self-hosting the Manager from source is coming as we finish open-sourcing it. Until then, Greffon Hosted (launching soon) will run the control plane for you — join the waitlist on greffon.io.
What if Greffon shuts down?
Your greffers and data run on hardware you control. The stack is AGPL v3, so you can move the Manager to your own infrastructure and keep going. There’s no proprietary lock holding your apps.
Why not Railway, Render, or Heroku?
Different model. Those run your apps on their servers and bill for it. With Greffon, the apps run on a greffer you own — your VPS, Pi, or old laptop — and you pay only for the hardware (plus Hosted, if you choose it).
How is this different from Coolify or CapRover?
Those are great tools in the same movement. Greffon leans on a catalog-first experience, a built-in CA and automatic TLS, and a Manager that can drive many greffers at once. If another tool already works for you, keep using it.
How does AGPL affect me?
For running Greffon internally, it doesn’t change anything. The AGPL only matters if you modify the software and offer it as a network service to others — then you share your changes. Catalog templates are Apache 2.0, so contributing greffon recipes has no license friction.
What counts as a greffon instance?
Each deployed app on a greffer is one instance — whether it’s running or stopped. Self-hosted has no limit on greffers or greffons.