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@wiluszdamian wiluszdamian released this 16 Sep 13:18
· 313 commits to main since this release
v2.0.0
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[2.0.0] - 2026-09-16

First public, open source release. Apache 2.0.

Releasing PanelAlpha Engine as Open Source was the biggest (and the most exciting!) milestone for us this year. With this move, we not only want to show the new direction of our product and respond to the new trends on the market, but also invite you to build it together with us. I believe that building a community around PanelAlpha Engine is the only way to turn it into a new standard for hosting and make servers ready for the AI era.

Konrad Keck - CEO & Founder

An important note for current users: if you’re using PanelAlpha together with the Engine, please stay on your current version for now. Making the Control Panel ready for 2.0 is the next milestone on our list, and work on that is already in progress. Thanks for sticking with us for this next step!

Engine 2.0 is a new product, not a polish of 1.x. Git, backups and staging now live in the engine instead of the panel. Everything else below is new: Docker-in-Docker hosting, MCP, app recipes, the secret vault, and telemetry.

Install on a fresh Debian or Ubuntu VPS:

curl -fsSL https://get.panelalpha.com/engine | sh

Read the announcement: PanelAlpha Engine 2.0

Documentation: panelalpha.com/documentation/panelalpha-engine · Discord

Added

Deploy any stack

  • Deploy from git. Point the engine at a public or private repository. It clones the code, detects the stack, builds it, starts it, and gives it HTTPS. Private repos use a git token pasted on a vault page, never in the chat.
  • Deploy from files. Upload an archive when the code is not in git. Later updates rebuild from the files already on the VPS, or from a new archive.
  • Any application. PHP, WordPress, Laravel, Node, Next.js, Django, Python, Go, Rust, Java, a Dockerfile, a Compose file, a folder of HTML. The engine looks at the repository and works out how to run it.
  • App recipes (panelalpha.yaml). Put a .panelalpha/ directory in the repository to say how that app should be bootstrapped. The engine also ships recipes for known apps.

Isolation and Docker

  • Docker-in-Docker, isolated with Sysbox. Each project runs in its own container, with its own disk, memory and CPU limits. One broken app cannot take the others down.
  • Cached images on the host. Base images stay on the VPS, so the next deploy of a similar stack does not wait on Docker Hub.

Domains, TLS, Cloudflare

  • A free panelalpha.online hostname on every project, with HTTPS, the moment it exists. Attach your own domain when you are ready; Let's Encrypt issues and renews the certificate.
  • Cloudflare tunnels. Serve a site through Cloudflare instead of opening the VPS to the internet. Built for servers behind NAT, homelabs without a public IP, and anyone who does not want to point an A record at the machine.

Hosting operations (moved from the panel)

These used to live in the PanelAlpha panel. In 2.0 they run on the engine itself.

  • Git on the project. Pull, switch branch, or go back to the last deployed commit, then rebuild.
  • Backups and backup stores. Snapshot a project's files, volumes and databases to a local folder, S3, FTP or SFTP, and restore it.
  • Staging and push. A linked copy with its own hostname. Push staging live when you are happy, or the other way to refresh the test copy with real data.

Control: MCP, API, CLI

  • MCP, 182 tools. Connect the assistant you already use (Claude Code, Cursor, Codex, Gemini CLI, and others). It deploys, debugs and looks after the server through the engine, never as root.
  • REST API. Full server management over HTTP. The same operations as MCP.
  • pae CLI. The same work from SSH when no assistant is connected.

Health, telemetry, secrets

  • App health checks. Ask whether a project is still serving itself, over MCP, the API or pae. The engine also probes every deployed app on a schedule.
  • Telemetry. Anonymous reports about deploys and later health, so a failure that shows up on many installs can be fixed in the product. Optional email alerts if you give an address. Off with pae telemetry:disable. Nothing about your source, tokens, or visitors is sent.
  • Secret vault. When a private git repo or a Cloudflare tunnel needs a token, the assistant creates a one-hour URL. You paste the token there. The assistant never sees it.

Changed

  • Rebuilt core. The engine is no longer a remote worker for the panel. Hosting operations run here. The codebase is structured around Docker-in-Docker accounts; classic PHP hosting accounts remain supported.
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