portainer open source analysis

Making Docker and Kubernetes management easy.

Project overview

⭐ 36059 · TypeScript · Last activity on GitHub: 2026-01-05

GitHub: https://github.com/portainer/portainer

Why it matters for engineering teams

Portainer addresses the complexity of managing containerised environments by providing a straightforward user interface for Docker and Kubernetes. It simplifies deployment, monitoring, and maintenance tasks that can otherwise require extensive command-line expertise. This open source tool for engineering teams is especially suited to DevOps engineers, platform engineers, and site reliability engineers who need a reliable and production ready solution to streamline container management. Portainer is mature and well-maintained, trusted in many production environments for its stability and ease of use. However, it may not be the right choice for teams requiring deeply custom orchestration or those already invested in alternative Kubernetes management platforms with more advanced features.

When to use this project

Portainer is a strong choice when teams need a self hosted option for container management that reduces operational overhead and accelerates onboarding. Teams should consider alternatives if they require highly custom Kubernetes workflows or advanced cluster management capabilities beyond Portainer's scope.

Team fit and typical use cases

DevOps and platform engineers benefit most from Portainer as they use it to deploy, monitor and manage containers across development and production environments. It fits well in teams building microservices-based products or managing infrastructure with Docker and Kubernetes, offering a practical interface that reduces reliance on complex CLI commands.

Topics and ecosystem

docker docker-compose docker-container docker-deployment docker-image docker-swarm docker-ui dockerfile hacktoberfest kubernetes moby portainer ui

Activity and freshness

Latest commit on GitHub: 2026-01-05. Activity data is based on repeated RepoPi snapshots of the GitHub repository. It gives a quick, factual view of how alive the project is.