App Catalog & Custom Images
Deploy popular open-source apps in one click, or run any Docker image or Dockerfile with no Git repo.
Not every app you want to run lives in your own Git repository. Better-PaaS has an App Catalog of popular self-hosted software you can deploy in one click, plus the ability to run any Docker image or a pasted Dockerfile directly — no repo required.
You'll find all of this on the App Catalog screen in the dashboard sidebar.
One-click catalog apps
The catalog is a curated set of single-container, open-source apps — monitoring tools, note-taking apps, password managers, media servers, developer utilities, and more (Uptime Kuma, Vaultwarden, Jellyfin, Gotify, Stirling PDF, and others).
Open App Catalog and browse or search the available apps.
Click an app, give it a name, and fill in any settings it asks for (some apps need an initial admin password or similar).
Click Deploy. Better-PaaS pulls the pinned image, starts it through the same zero-downtime pipeline as your other apps, and routes it through Caddy.
Catalog apps get the exact same treatment as git-based apps: a live URL, logs, metrics, custom domains, rollbacks, and an in-container terminal.
Pinned, single-container images
Catalog images are pinned to a major/minor version line (not latest) so
deploys are repeatable. The catalog is intentionally single-container —
multi-container stacks (e.g. apps that need a separate database) are excluded
until Docker Compose support lands, rather than shipping something that would
fail. Apps that need data persistence get a managed
volume automatically.
Apps that need extra setup
A few catalog apps have caveats — for example, a log viewer that needs read-only access to the Docker socket, or a media server where you mount your library as an extra volume. When an app has such a note, the catalog shows it before you deploy. Add any required volume mapping from the app's Configuration tab after the first deploy.
Deploy from a Docker image
Want something that isn't in the catalog? Run any image from Docker Hub or another public registry.
On the App Catalog screen, open Custom Deploy → From Docker image.
Enter the image reference, e.g. nginx:1.27 or ghcr.io/owner/app:tag.
Set the port your image listens on, plus any environment variables, volumes, domains, or resource limits you need, then deploy.
Pin a tag
Use a specific tag rather than latest so redeploys are repeatable. Public
registries only for now.
Deploy from a Dockerfile
You can also paste a self-contained Dockerfile and have Better-PaaS build and run it on the server — no Git repo needed.
Open Custom Deploy → From a Dockerfile.
Paste your Dockerfile. It must contain a FROM instruction.
Configure the port, env vars, volumes, and limits as above, then deploy.
No build context
Because there's no repository, there's no build context — COPY and ADD of
local files won't work. The Dockerfile must fetch everything it needs (install
packages, ADD https://…, etc.). If you need to ship local files, use a
Git deploy instead.