HomeioDockge is deliberately narrow: compose files in, running stacks out, with a clean editor and live output. That is the right tool until the day you need to check a disk, mount a drive, schedule a job or restore last week's state. Homeio keeps the Compose model and adds the server around it.
| Need | In Homeio |
|---|---|
| Edit and run a stack | Edit the compose file in place, then redeploy. Live output while it pulls and starts. Dockge: the same, and it is what Dockge is best at. |
| Start a new service | Pick it from the catalog and fill in the form, or paste your own compose file or docker run command. Dockge: write the compose file, or convert a docker run command. |
| A shell in a container | Not available. The terminal runs allowlisted host commands one at a time. Dockge has an interactive container shell. |
| Is the disk filling up | Disk, CPU, memory and network on the desktop, updated live, with a disk alert at a threshold you set (90% by default). Dockge shows no host metrics. |
| Scheduled maintenance | Cron tasks for image pulls, restarts, scripts and backups, with a notification on failure. Dockge has no scheduler. |
| Files and drives | A file manager with editor and previews, Samba shares, SMB mounts, USB drives, and partitioning and formatting in Settings. |
| More than one host | One host. Dockge can manage other hosts through agents. |
| Footprint | Node and PostgreSQL. The Docker install caps the container at 1 GB of memory. Dockge is a single, lighter container. |
Only if you keep leaving Dockge for other tools. Dockge, from the author of Uptime Kuma, does one job: edit and run compose.yaml files in a browser. If you also SSH in to check disk space, mount a drive, restore a volume or set up a cron job, Homeio puts those next to the stacks. If you do not, Dockge is lighter and you should keep it.
It is smaller: one container with SQLite, where Homeio runs Node and PostgreSQL. Its stacks are plain folders in /opt/stacks that you can edit with any tool and it picks up. It gives you an interactive shell inside a container. It can manage stacks on other hosts through agents. Homeio's terminal runs allowlisted commands only, and it manages one host.
A catalog (the CasaOS app store, plus any sources you add) with install forms and update checks; a file manager with a Monaco editor; Samba shares, SMB mounts and USB drives; a partition manager; host and per-container metrics; a cron scheduler; weekly backups; two-factor login; and Tailscale and Cloudflare Tunnel in Settings.
Yes: paste a compose file, or a docker run command that Homeio converts to Compose, and it becomes a custom app you can edit, redeploy and, since 1.9.1, remove. Stacks Dockge already runs keep running; Homeio lists their containers read-only and does not touch them.
Yes. Homeio's Docker install listens on 12026, Dockge on 5001, and they manage separate stacks. Many people move stacks over one at a time.
It can pull new images for every stack on a cron schedule, and it notifies you if the run fails. The pull does not recreate containers, so the new version takes effect when you update or redeploy the app. That is deliberate: an unattended recreate is how a database container ends up on a major version you did not plan for.
Yes, it is open source under the AGPL-3.0; Dockge is MIT licensed. Since 1.9.5 it sends an anonymous ping twice a day with a random ID, the version and the platform, with public totals at homeio.app/stats; HOMEIO_TELEMETRY=false turns it off.
The demo needs no install. On a spare machine or a VM, the Docker install takes a few minutes and listens on port 12026, so it does not fight your current setup for port 80.