What is Haloy

Haloy is a lightweight deployment and orchestration system designed for developers who want a simple, reliable way to deploy Docker‑based applications to their own servers. It removes the complexity of traditional DevOps stacks while providing the core features needed for modern deployments.

Haloy is open source, MIT licensed, and completely free.

Haloy consists of three main parts:

  1. haloy: CLI tool that runs on your local machine and handles deployments, build workflows, logs, rollbacks, and multi‑server targeting.
  2. haloyd: A lightweight control-plane daemon that runs on your server and handles container orchestration, service discovery, SSL certificates, routing configuration, and deployment logic.
  3. haloy-proxy: A small data-plane daemon that owns ports 80 and 443, terminates HTTPS, and keeps serving traffic while haloyd restarts or upgrades.

How Haloy Works

  • You write a haloy.yaml (or whatever you want to call it) file describing how your app should be built and deployed.
  • The Haloy CLI builds your image (if configured), uploads or pushes it, and triggers deployment on the server.
  • haloyd launches and monitors your application containers, manages SSL with Let’s Encrypt, and pushes routing snapshots to haloy-proxy.
  • haloy-proxy handles load balancing and HTTPS termination, and can keep serving the last known good routes if haloyd is temporarily down.

Key Features

  • Simple deployments: One command deploys your app with zero infrastructure setup beyond the initial install.
  • Built‑in HTTPS: Automatic TLS certificates via ACME/Let’s Encrypt.
  • Automatic routing: Domains and alias redirects are managed for you.
  • Control-plane safe upgrades: Normal haloyd upgrades do not interrupt application traffic because haloy-proxy keeps serving.
  • Multi‑server support: Deploy to staging, production, and regional servers from one config.
  • Build locally or use registries: Build Docker images on your machine and either upload them or push to registries.
  • Rollbacks: Roll back instantly using local images or registry tags.
  • Horizontal scaling: Define replicas to run multiple instances of your app.
  • Secret management: Integrates with environment variables and secret providers like 1Password and SOPS.
  • Zero vendor lock‑in: Everything runs on your own Linux servers using Docker.

When to Use Haloy

Haloy is built for developers who want:

  • A simple deployment workflow without Kubernetes complexity
  • A self‑hosted, Docker‑based deployment platform
  • Clean separation between dev, staging, and production environments
  • A fast “build → ship → run” loop
  • Predictable, stable deployments on their own machines

It’s ideal for:

  • Indie developers
  • Small teams
  • Self‑hosted SaaS
  • API services
  • Internal tools
  • Multi‑environment deployments
  • Lightweight multi‑region setups

When Not to Use Haloy

Haloy is intentionally simple. You probably don’t want it if you need:

  • Full Kubernetes‑style auto‑scaling rules
  • Service mesh or network policy layers
  • Multi‑node clustering with auto‑failover
  • Deep container‑orchestration features (jobs, cron workloads, etc.)

Why Haloy Exists

Infrastructure has become complicated. Many developers do not need Kubernetes, cloud vendor services, or complex CI/CD pipelines for everyday apps.

For the full positioning and tradeoffs, see Why Haloy.

Next Steps

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