Overview

Vito is a free, self-hosted control panel for managing Linux servers and deploying PHP applications to them. You install the panel itself once — on a VPS, a homelab box, or via Docker — and from there it provisions and drives any number of remote servers over SSH. Instead of hand-editing nginx, PHP-FPM and supervisor configuration on every deploy, you connect a server in the panel and let it install the stack, create databases, issue certificates and run your deploy scripts.

It is written in Laravel, Inertia and React, and is aimed at people running PHP applications such as Laravel on their own hardware who want the convenience of a PaaS-style workflow without giving up the servers.

What it does

• Server provisioning — installs and configures PHP versions, nginx, databases and required packages on a fresh VPS over SSH.
• Database management — create, back up and manage MySQL and MariaDB databases per site.
• PHP application deploys — connect a Git repository, define deploy scripts, and run releases with rollback to a previous deployment.
• SSL certificates — Let’s Encrypt issuance and renewal, plus custom certificates.
• Queue workers and cron — supervisor-managed workers and editable cron entries for each site.
• Firewall and services — manage UFW rules and core services from the panel.
• SSH keys and user isolation — deploy keys to servers and run each site as its own system user.
• Monitoring, console and logs — CPU, memory and disk cards per server, a web terminal, and log viewing.
• API, plugins, import/export — automate the panel itself and move a Vito install between hosts.

Deployment and requirements

The panel needs PHP 8.2+ with the usual Laravel extensions, a database (MySQL, MariaDB, PostgreSQL or SQLite) and a web server. Its repository publishes a one-command install script that configures all of this, plus a Docker image for container installs; the project’s documentation site covers both paths in detail.

The servers it manages need a recent Linux distribution, SSH access and a sudo-capable user. Vito works over SSH alone, so nothing has to be installed on the target before you add it to the panel.

Alternatives

• Coolify — self-hosted PaaS covering Docker, databases and many languages, rather than PHP-focused deployment.

If you mainly deploy PHP and Laravel and want a lighter panel than a full container platform, Vito is the narrower fit; for wider orchestration needs, see the rest of the Containers and Virtualization category.