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Ouroboros vs Drydock

The original pyouroboros project has been unmaintained since around 2020 (last release: v1.4.3, December 2019). Drydock offers a modern, actively maintained alternative with a full web UI, security scanning, and comprehensive container management.

Ouroboros — UnmaintainedDrydock — Actively Maintained

Feature Comparison

Here's how we compare on the features that matter most.

FeatureOuroborosDrydock
Project statusUnmaintained (since ~2020)Actively maintained
LanguagePythonTypeScript
Web UINone (CLI only)Full dashboard
Auto-update containersYesYes (optional, monitor-first)
Docker Compose updatesNoYes, pull & recreate
Registry supportDocker Hub + private via Docker config23 dedicated registry integrations
NotificationsApprise passthrough (150+ platforms via Apprise URLs)20 native trigger integrations
Security scanningNoneTrivy + SBOM + cosign verification
OIDC authenticationNoneAuthelia, Auth0, Authentik
REST APINoneFull REST API
Prometheus metricsBasic (container update counts; official Grafana template available)Full /metrics endpoint + Grafana template
Image backup & rollbackNoPre-update backup with retention + auto rollback
Container groupingNoSmart stack detection with batch actions
Lifecycle hooksNoPre/post-update shell commands
Webhook APINoToken-authenticated webhooks for CI/CD
Container actionsNoStart/stop/restart from UI/API
Distributed agentsNoSSE-based agent architecture
Audit logNoYes, with REST API
Semver-aware updatesNoYes
Digest watchingYesYes
Multi-arch (amd64/arm64)YesYes
LicenseMITAGPL-3.0

Key Differentiators

What we built that Ouroboros doesn't cover.

Full Web Dashboard

Ouroboros is CLI-only with no built-in UI. Drydock ships with a full web dashboard for browsing containers, viewing update status, triggering actions, and inspecting logs.

Monitor-First Design

Drydock is monitor-first by design — it detects updates and notifies you, with dry-run preview before any changes are applied. Ouroboros auto-pulls and restarts containers with no preview option.

Security Scanning

Drydock integrates Trivy vulnerability scanning, SBOM generation (CycloneDX & SPDX), and cosign image signature verification. Ouroboros has no security scanning.

23 Registry Integrations

Dedicated integrations for Docker Hub, GHCR, ECR, GCR, GAR, GitLab, Quay, Harbor, Artifactory, Nexus, and more — far beyond Ouroboros's Docker-config-based approach.

Rollback & Backup

Pre-update image backups with configurable retention and automatic rollback on health check failure. Ouroboros has no rollback or backup mechanism.

20 Trigger Integrations

Drydock notifies across 17 native channels — Slack, Discord, Telegram, Teams, Matrix, SMTP, MQTT, and more — plus Docker, Docker Compose, and Command actions. Ouroboros delegates notifications to Apprise (any Apprise-compatible URL works), but has no native trigger system — no scheduling, templating, threshold filtering, or batch mode.

Coming from Ouroboros?

Ouroboros hasn't been updated in years. Drydock gives you the same auto-update capability plus a full dashboard, security scanning, rollback, and much more. One Docker command to get started.

Quick start
$ docker run -d \
  --name drydock \
  -v /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock \
  -p 3000:3000 \
  -e DD_ANONYMOUS_AUTH_CONFIRM=true \
  codeswhat/drydock  # open dashboard — add real auth before exposing this

Ready to try Drydock?

No SaaS subscription, no data sent off your host, and we ship updates fast.