Portainer vs Dockge vs CLI: Managing Docker Containers in Your Homelab
A practical comparison of the three ways to manage Docker in a homelab: Portainer, Dockge, and the plain command line. Which one to pick based on how you actually run your stack.
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Once you’ve got Docker running and a few containers up, the next question shows up fast: how do I actually manage this stuff? Restart a container, check why one died, update an image, edit a compose file. You can do all of it from the terminal, but a lot of people want a dashboard. And the moment you go looking for one, two names come up: Portainer and Dockge.
I’ve run all three approaches in my own homelab. Plain CLI for the first year, Portainer after that, and Dockge more recently on a second host. They’re not really competing for the same job, which is the thing most comparisons get wrong. Here’s what each one is actually good at, where each one annoys you, and how to pick.
The three options, in one sentence each
- CLI:
dockeranddocker composefrom the terminal. No extra software, no web UI, full power, zero hand-holding. - Dockge: a lightweight web UI built specifically around
docker composestacks. It reads and writes the same compose files you’d write by hand. - Portainer: a full-featured Docker management platform with a web UI for containers, images, volumes, networks, stacks, and more.
That summary is most of the decision right there. Dockge is a focused tool that respects your compose files. Portainer is a kitchen-sink platform that wants to be the place you do everything. The CLI is the CLI.
How each one wants you to work
This is the real difference, and it matters more than any feature list.
The CLI assumes you keep your compose files organized on disk, one folder per stack, and you run docker compose up -d from inside each folder. Your source of truth is the filesystem. Everything is a text file you can put in git. There’s nothing to back up except the folders you already have.
Dockge assumes the exact same thing. It points at a directory (the default is /opt/stacks), and each subfolder with a compose.yaml becomes a stack in the UI. You edit the compose file in the browser, hit deploy, and Dockge runs the same docker compose up you’d have typed. The files stay readable on disk. This is the part I like: Dockge doesn’t hide your config inside a database. If Dockge disappears tomorrow, your stacks are still plain compose files and nothing breaks.
Portainer can work with compose files (it calls them “stacks”), but its default gravity pulls you toward managing things through Portainer. When you create a stack by pasting compose into the web editor, that content lives in Portainer’s own database, not as a clean file on disk you can git diff. You can point Portainer at a git repo or a relative path instead, and you should, but the path of least resistance leads to config trapped in Portainer. That’s my single biggest reservation about it.
Feature comparison
| CLI | Dockge | Portainer | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Web UI | No | Yes | Yes |
| Compose files stay on disk | Yes | Yes | Only if configured |
| Edit compose in browser | No | Yes | Yes |
| Live container logs in UI | No (use docker logs) | Yes | Yes |
| Web terminal into container | No (use docker exec) | Yes | Yes |
| Image/volume/network management UI | No | Minimal | Extensive |
| Multi-host management | No | Yes (agent) | Yes (agent) |
| Resource usage | Zero | ~50MB RAM | ~150MB+ RAM |
| Learning curve | Steep up front | Gentle | Moderate |
| Lock-in risk | None | Very low | Real if you misuse it |
What Dockge gets right
Dockge is the tool I recommend to most people who want a dashboard, and the reason is simple: it adds convenience without taking anything away.
The compose editor in the browser has syntax highlighting and a handy “convert docker run to compose” tool that’s genuinely useful when you find a project that only documents the docker run command. The logs panel updates live, which beats keeping a docker logs -f terminal open. And because every stack is just a folder, I can SSH in, edit the file by hand, and Dockge picks up the change. The UI and the terminal are two views of the same thing.
It’s also light. On a small N100 mini PC where every 100MB of RAM counts, Dockge’s ~50MB footprint barely registers.
The honest limits: Dockge only manages compose stacks. It won’t help you prune dangling images, inspect a network, or poke at a volume. It does one job. For a lot of homelabs, that one job is 95% of what you do.
What Portainer gets right
Portainer earns its weight when you want a real management console, not just a stack deployer.
It shows you every image, every volume, every network, and lets you act on all of them from the browser. The “clean up unused images” button alone saves me from remembering docker image prune syntax. It has role-based access control if you’re sharing the homelab with family or a small team. It manages multiple hosts from one pane through its agent. And the container inspection views are genuinely good when you’re debugging why something won’t start.
If you’re the type who wants to see everything Docker is doing and click around to understand it, Portainer is the better teacher. I learned a lot about Docker internals just from browsing Portainer’s screens in my first month.
The honest limits: it’s heavier, the stack/database lock-in is a real trap for the careless, and the free Community Edition gates a few features behind Portainer Business (free for up to 5 nodes, which covers most homelabs anyway). It also wants to be the center of your world, and not everyone wants a center.
When the CLI is still the right answer
Don’t skip this section just because you came here for a UI.
If your homelab is a handful of stable services that you set up once and rarely touch, the CLI plus well-organized folders is genuinely the lowest-maintenance option. There’s no dashboard to update, no web port to secure, no extra container eating RAM. You write your compose files, you put them in git, and you run two commands when you need to. The Docker Compose basics guide covers the folder layout I use.
The CLI is also non-negotiable as a skill. Every UI here is a wrapper around commands you’ll eventually need when something breaks and the UI won’t load. Learn docker compose up -d, docker compose logs -f, docker ps, and docker exec -it <name> sh before you lean on any dashboard. The dashboard is a convenience, not a replacement.
The decision matrix
| Your situation | Pick |
|---|---|
| New to Docker, want to learn what’s happening | CLI first, then Portainer to explore |
| Want a dashboard but keep config in git | Dockge |
| Mostly deploy and edit compose stacks | Dockge |
| Want full image/volume/network management | Portainer |
| Sharing the homelab with family (access control) | Portainer |
| Running on tight RAM (under 8GB total) | Dockge or CLI |
| Stable set-and-forget homelab | CLI |
| Managing several Docker hosts at once | Portainer or Dockge (both have agents) |
What I actually run
On my main Docker host, I run Dockge. My compose files live in /opt/stacks, they’re in git, and Dockge gives me a browser view for the day-to-day: deploy, check logs, restart. It never gets between me and my files, which is exactly what I want from a tool that runs my whole stack.
I also keep Portainer installed on a second box where I do more experimenting, because its image and volume management saves me from remembering CLI flags when I’m spinning things up and tearing them down. The Portainer setup guide walks through that install if you want it.
And I still drop to the CLI constantly, because that’s where you go when a container won’t start and you need docker logs and docker inspect to find out why.
The framing that actually matters: these aren’t three rungs on a ladder where Portainer is the “advanced” answer. Dockge is the right call for most homelabs because it does less. The best management tool is the one that adds convenience without hiding your configuration or eating resources you don’t have.
If you’re still building out what to run in the first place, start with the best self-hosted apps for beginners roundup. If you’re weighing whether to add a hypervisor under all of this, why I run Proxmox instead of plain Docker covers that layer. And once you’ve got more than a few containers running, homelab monitoring with Prometheus and Grafana is the natural next step past “is it up?”
One last practical note: whichever UI you pick, it’s a web service like any other, so don’t expose it to the internet. Put it behind a reverse proxy on your LAN or reach it over Tailscale. A management dashboard with a public port is exactly the kind of thing you don’t want strangers finding.
If you want a low-power always-on box to host all of this, a small N100 mini PC like the Beelink S12 Pro handles Docker plus a UI without breaking a sweat, and it idles low enough that the electric bill stays boring. That’s the whole point.