Introduction

Jokku is modeled on Dokku. You git push an app that has a Dockerfile, and Jokku builds it, runs it and routes your domains to it, with Let's Encrypt certificates for the apps you want on HTTPS.

Two things set it apart:

• Every instance is a microVM. Each instance of your app runs in its own lightweight Firecracker virtual machine instead of a container.
• Servers join with one command. One server is a complete Jokku. Add more and your apps spread across them, with nothing else to change.

The commands are Dokku's, so if you know Dokku, you already know Jokku.

The 60-second tour#

On a fresh Ubuntu or Debian server with KVM:

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/wes/jokku/main/install.sh | sudo sh

On your laptop, in a repo with a Dockerfile (you only need git and ssh):

git remote add jokku jokku@your-server:myapp
git push jokku main
# => http://myapp.203.0.113.10.sslip.io

Every other command runs over SSH, from anywhere:

ssh jokku@your-server config:set myapp DATABASE_URL=postgres://...
ssh jokku@your-server domains:add myapp myapp.com
ssh jokku@your-server ps:scale myapp web=4 worker=2
ssh jokku@your-server resource:limit myapp --cpu 2 --memory 1g --process-type web

What you get#

• git push deploys with zero downtime. If the new version fails to start, the push is rejected and the previous version keeps serving.
• Dockerfiles, compose files and registry images. Build from a Dockerfile, deploy a whole compose.yaml, or run an image from a registry.
• Automatic HTTPS from Let's Encrypt, served by Caddy, which is built into Jokku.
• Scaling across processes, instances and servers with ps:scale and resource:limit.
• Volumes for data that must last, which move with their app when it changes servers.
• Private networking. Apps reach each other by name, such as cache.internal, on any server in the cluster.
• jokku top, a live view of your servers, apps and every request.

Status#

Where to next#