Support for docker compose

[ekevu123]

I would just like to point out that my biggest pain point with cloudron at the moment is that I cannot work with docker compose apps. So, currently, I need to run a second server where I will probably use coolify, which is far less user-friendly.

I would be happy to have all my apps on Cloudron, but there are some that run with docker compose only that I cannot miss.

Still, happy to stick with Cloudron for everything else.

[girish]

@ekevu123 focus of Cloudron is to be able to run selfhostable ready to run apps easily. I think that having a separate set up to run arbitrary docker images / compose is the correct approach. We have considered making a generic UI to run docker image / compose but concluded is quite a different product. It's almost similar to asking the other way around (asking coolio to have an app store of maintained images).

[fbartels]

@ekevu123 said in Support for docker compose:

cannot work with docker compose apps [...] far less user-friendly

You can sort of run docker compose apps on cloudron, but that would be at your own risk and only for those who want to run apps manually. As shown in https://forum.cloudron.io/post/73961, you can just ssh into your Cloudron server, create and run your compose.yaml, and finally use an app proxy to expose the app.

Downsides:

• Anything you expose may conflict with the ports assigned on your cloudron. So only feasible if you know how to troubleshoot a server.
• it is not included in Cloudron backups, so you would have to do it manually as well
• Updates would most likely have to be done manually.
• No databases or other things from Cloudron.
• No automatic user integration

Instead of using host mode, you should use an explicit port mapping that binds to localhost like this

ports:
 - "127.0.0.1:50123:8001"

[ekevu123]

@girish Is it a different product, though? Technically, probably, but it would be so lovely to run docker compose apps next to dockerfile apps as custom apps on Cloudron within a container, even if I have to make custom changes to the docker compose setting to make it work.

Or, alternatively, you guys bring a docker compose manager on the market (yes, that would be a different product, but totally in-brand). A competitor to portainer (too corporate) and coolify (bad UI).

I would be willing to pay a premium, just in case you ever decided to do that.

@fbartels Of course I wouldn't want to run them next to Cloudron, only as apps within Cloudron.

[girish]

@ekevu123 good input. Something for us to keep in mind for future planning. I didn't mean to rule the feature out completely, just that it's quite a different kind of feature than what we are doing now. I definitely see the potential.

[simong]

@ekevu123 I would recommend to use dokploy.com if you do not need the additional features of coolify.

[ekevu123]

Thank you, I will check it out!

[hackepeter]

I think something as simple as Dockge would be just perfect. For the backup integration, just let the user select the volumes (from the compose file) to include in addition to the compose.yaml.

[ekevu123]

@simong said in Support for docker compose:

@ekevu123 I would recommend to use dokploy.com if you do not need the additional features of coolify.

I have just tried dokploy and I like it a lot for docker compose setups. It was super simple to use and much easier than dockge or coolify.

I might run potentially one server with cloudron and one with dokploy, so that I can cover all kinds of deployments.