The single-binary Docker fleet manager. 100% open source. No paywalls.

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dockmesh is a lightweight Docker fleet-management platform. One Go binary, one SvelteKit UI, outbound-only agents on every other host. Stacks live on disk as plain compose.yaml files — the filesystem is the source of truth, the DB just indexes it. RBAC, SSO, audit log, encrypted backups, CVE scanning, and multi-host orchestration ship free in the single binary — no "community edition", no feature gates, no per-node pricing.

One-line install

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

That pulls the latest release binary to /usr/local/bin/dockmesh and walks you through first-run setup: data directory, admin user, listen port, optional systemd unit. Two minutes, then browse to http://<host>:8080.

Prefer Docker? See Docker Compose below.

Platform support

For v1 the server + agent are Linux-native — systemd, /var/lib/dockmesh, unix sockets. The dmctl CLI is cross-platform so Mac and Windows users can already drive a Linux dockmesh server from their laptop. Native macOS + Windows server/agent support is on the near-term roadmap (driven by homelab demand for Mac-mini hosts).

Features

Everything is included in the single binary. There is no paid tier.

Container & Stack management Compose-first: stacks are stacks/<name>/compose.yaml Deploy / stop / restart / scale / rolling update Rollback history (snapshot compose + resolved images per deploy) Stack dependencies (base-stacks deploy first, refuse delete on deps) Env overrides + global env vars injected at deploy time Git source: auto-pull + auto-deploy on push or webhook Templates gallery (one-click deploys)	Multi-host fleet Outbound-only mTLS agents (no inbound ports on remote hosts) Per-host picker + all mode fan-out views Deploy stacks to any host from the same UI Stack migration across hosts (P.9 preflight + volume stream) Host-tag RBAC scopes (per-team isolation) Fleet-wide agent auto-upgrade on server version change
Security Custom RBAC roles with granular permissions OIDC SSO — Azure AD, Google, Keycloak, Okta, Authentik, Dex TOTP 2FA + single-use recovery codes SHA-256 hash-chained audit log age-encrypted stack .env files (zero plaintext on disk) In-place age key rotation (no service restart)	Observability Live CPU / memory / disk per host with smoothed metrics Live container stats + log streaming with auto-reconnect Container exec over WebSocket Alert rules (CPU/memory thresholds, configurable durations) Webhooks + notification channels (Slack, Discord, email) Prometheus /metrics endpoint
Backups & DR Scheduled backups of volumes, stacks, or whole system Pre/post hooks for application-consistent DB dumps (PostgreSQL / MySQL / MariaDB / Redis / MongoDB) Local, SMB (NAS), SFTP, WebDAV, or S3 targets Encrypted with age — the same key the stack .env uses One-click restore + verify-by-run (extract to /tmp, sanity-check, discard — never touches the live install)	Networking & Extras Embedded Caddy reverse proxy with automatic HTTPS Per-host port-conflict detection at deploy time Grype CVE scanner integration (image-level + fix-in column) Private registry credentials (age-encrypted at rest) dmctl CLI for CI/CD + scripted deploys Single binary — runs on a Raspberry Pi or a 500-host fleet

Screenshots

See dockmesh.dev for the live marketing carousel with all hero shots.

Dashboard with live fleet overview	Multi-host agents with mTLS
CVE scanning via Grype	Scheduled encrypted backups

Architecture

• Single binary. Go 1.23+, SvelteKit UI embedded via go:embed. No sidecars, no helm-chart, no external runtime deps beyond Docker itself.
• Filesystem as source of truth. Stacks live at stacks/<name>/compose.yaml. The DB indexes deployment state; the actual config is always on disk where you can grep, git log, and vim it.
• Outbound-only agents. Remote hosts open a WebSocket to the server — no inbound port to firewall, no VPN, no reverse tunnel. mTLS client certs per agent, revokable.
• No Kubernetes. Docker + Compose + a spine of management tooling. If you want K8s, use Rancher. If you want zero-config Docker across a fleet, use dockmesh.

Install options

Bare-metal / VM (recommended)

curl -fsSL https://get.dockmesh.dev | bash
sudo dockmesh init
sudo systemctl enable --now dockmesh

Docker Compose

services:
  dockmesh:
    image: ghcr.io/dockmesh/dockmesh:latest
    restart: unless-stopped
    ports:
      - "8080:8080"
      - "8443:8443"  # agent mTLS listener
    volumes:
      - /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock:ro
      - ./data:/var/lib/dockmesh/data
      - ./stacks:/var/lib/dockmesh/stacks
    environment:
      DOCKMESH_BASE_URL: https://dockmesh.example.com

Install an agent on a remote host

From the UI: Agents → New agent, copy the one-line enroll command to the remote host. The installer handles the systemd unit and first handshake.

Quick start

After dockmesh init:

1. Log in at http://<host>:8080 with the generated admin password
2. Create a stack: Stacks → New → paste a compose.yaml → Deploy
3. (Optional) Enroll a second host: Agents → New agent → run the install one-liner on the remote host
4. (Optional) Set up backups: Backups → New job → pick a target (SMB / S3 / SFTP / local) → pick sources → save
5. (Optional) Turn on the reverse proxy: Proxy → Enable → add a route → Caddy handles the Let's Encrypt dance

Documentation

• Installation
• Quick start
• Multi-host setup
• Backups & DR
• RBAC & SSO
• Disaster recovery playbook

Community & support

• Issues & bug reports: github.com/dockmesh/dockmesh/issues
• Feature requests: same — use the "enhancement" label
• Website: dockmesh.dev

Development

# Frontend + backend in watch mode
make dev

# Build single binary with embedded UI
make build

# Run E2E tests
make test

Tech stack: Go 1.23+, SvelteKit 2 with Svelte 5 runes, Tailwind v4, SQLite (default) / Postgres, Caddy (embedded), Grype (embedded).

License

dockmesh is released under the GNU Affero General Public License v3.0 (AGPL-3.0-only). See LICENSE.

The AGPL is chosen deliberately: modifications made available as a network service must be contributed back. That keeps the project sustainable and prevents SaaS-loophole exploitation.

Contributing

See CONTRIBUTING.md. By contributing you agree that your work is licensed under AGPL-3.0.

Security

Never report vulnerabilities in public issues. See SECURITY.md.