Tsuru is a free, open-source PaaS built by Globo.com that runs on Docker and Kubernetes. See features, self-hosting details, and Heroku alternatives.
Tsuru is an open-source Platform-as-a-Service that lets development teams deploy applications without managing the underlying servers, container orchestration, or scaling infrastructure themselves. It originated in 2012 inside Globo.com, Brazil's largest media conglomerate, where developer Andrews Medina and colleagues built it to solve the company's own need to deploy and scale a large number of internal applications reliably, including systems that support massive real-time traffic spikes during live television events.
The project was released publicly as open source under the 3-Clause BSD license and has since evolved into a general-purpose cloud-native platform built on components from the Cloud Native Computing Foundation ecosystem, running on Docker and Kubernetes. It gives platform and infrastructure teams the ability to manage distributed applications across multiple Kubernetes clusters and regions from a single point of control.
Tsuru is positioned as an open-source alternative to commercial PaaS products like Heroku or Render, aimed at organizations that want the simplicity of a git-push-to-deploy workflow while retaining full ownership and control of the infrastructure it runs on, since there is no official managed cloud version, only the self-hosted open-source platform.
Tsuru supports deploying applications written in any programming language or framework, either through buildpacks similar to Heroku's or by deploying prebuilt Docker images directly, giving teams flexibility in how they package their applications for the platform.
The platform is designed for scale and resilience: it supports managing applications across multiple Kubernetes clusters and geographic regions from a single control plane, includes autoscaling to dynamically grow application capacity in response to demand, and is built to support fast, reliable rolling deployments that enable continuous delivery workflows.
Because Tsuru is designed to be extensible and pluggable, platform teams can build custom components on top of its core rather than being limited to a fixed feature set, which has allowed organizations like Globo to adapt it to highly specific operational needs, such as handling voting traffic for live television broadcasts.
Tsuru is entirely free and open source under the 3-Clause BSD license. There is no official managed cloud product or subscription fee; organizations download and run the Tsuru control plane on their own Kubernetes infrastructure.
Because there is no vendor-hosted tier, the real cost of adopting Tsuru is the underlying Kubernetes infrastructure an organization provisions and operates, plus the engineering time required to deploy, configure, and maintain the platform itself, rather than any licensing fee paid to a Tsuru vendor.
Tsuru is a free, open-source Platform-as-a-Service that lets developers deploy applications on Docker and Kubernetes without managing infrastructure directly.
Tsuru was created in 2012 by developer Andrews Medina and colleagues at Globo.com, Brazil's largest media group.
Yes, Tsuru is completely free and open source under the 3-Clause BSD license, with no official paid tier.
Tsuru is released under the permissive 3-Clause BSD license.
Yes, modern versions of Tsuru run natively on Kubernetes and Docker as their underlying infrastructure.
Tsuru offers a similar git-push deployment experience to Heroku but is self-hosted and open source, giving organizations full control of the underlying infrastructure instead of relying on a managed vendor.
Tsuru has been used in production by Globo, QDQ Media, Hotel Urbano, Jumia, and Stone, among others.
Yes, Tsuru supports any language or framework via buildpacks or direct Docker image deployment.