Kowan is a free, MIT-licensed Docker manager you host yourself: one small server, an agent on each host, a fast web UI, a CLI and an MCP server for AI assistants.
$ docker run -d --name kowan --restart unless-stopped \
-p 5081:5081 \
-v kowan-data:/data \
-v /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock \
ghcr.io/kowan-lab/kowan:latestThen open localhost:5081. Prefer Compose? See the quick start.
Kowan answers what is running where, whether it is healthy and what changed, then lets you act on it without leaving the page.
Containers, images, volumes, networks and stacks across all your hosts, in tables that update from Docker events. Every container is one click from its logs, a console and its files.
Compose stacks, Kowan deployments and lone containers become one list of workloads, whether Kowan deployed them or found them already running. What is broken comes first, with the reason.
Every host runs a small agent. Behind NAT or a firewall, the agent dials out to the server; when the server can reach the host, it dials in. Both run over the same multiplexed tunnel.
docker run line when you add a hostOne token rule. Whoever dials sends the token; whoever accepts verifies it. The same rule holds in both directions.
The Exposure page lists every published port by reach, public, local only or one interface, and warns when a database or admin UI is open to everyone.
Deploy containers and compose stacks from an editor, a template or a git repository. Kowan checks the compose file before it saves or deploys it: ports already in use, clashing names, missing variables.
Alone, you never see the team features. With a team, roles and grants decide who can read, operate or manage which hosts, stacks and deployments.
Every change to what a deployment runs is a revision: who made it, why, and a diff against any other. One click puts an older one back. Branches and pull requests get their own preview next to production, and staging promotes exactly what you tested.
Kowan checks your sites and ports from outside, keeps the logs you choose for as long as you need them, and remembers how every workload used CPU and memory, so a slow leak shows up as a warning and not as an outage.
Every page and every action works on a phone, not a reduced version of them. Install Kowan to the home screen and it opens like an app; it never caches your data, so what you see is always live.
kowan.* labels in compose.kowanctl scripts the server from a terminal and bridges MCP over stdio.Kowan needs a machine with Docker. The server works without configuration; set KOWAN_EXTERNAL_URL before you attach agents on other hosts.
$ docker run -d --name kowan --restart unless-stopped \
-p 5081:5081 \
-v kowan-data:/data \
-v /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock \
ghcr.io/kowan-lab/kowan:latestservices:
server:
image: ghcr.io/kowan-lab/kowan:latest
ports:
- "5081:5081"
volumes:
- kowan-data:/data
- /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock
restart: unless-stopped
volumes:
kowan-data:$ docker compose up -dStart Kowan with docker run or Compose. Data, keys and the database live in the kowan-data volume: back it up.
Go to http://localhost:5081 (5-0-8-1, read ko-o-wa-n) and create the first admin account with the one-time setup token from docker logs kowan. The local Docker host is ready to manage.
In Hosts → Add host, pick edge or direct and run the one-line agent command Kowan shows on the other machine.