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Peanut is a lightweight tool for quickly spinning up databases, message brokers, and other services in containers for local development and testing. It provides a REST API, CLI, and web dashboard to manage ephemeral or persistent service instances without writing Docker Compose files.
Key facts
Objective fields from the source. Values we can't verify are shown as “Unknown” rather than guessed.
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Repository | Clivern/Peanut |
| Owner | Clivern |
| Primary language | Go |
| License | MIT — OSI-approved |
| Stars | 726 |
| Forks | 28 |
| Open issues | 25 |
| Latest release | v0.7.0 (2023-02-23) |
| Last updated | 2026-07-07 |
| Source | https://github.com/Clivern/Peanut |
What Peanut is
Go-based service provisioning layer that wraps Docker/docker-compose to deploy 23+ pre-configured services (MySQL, PostgreSQL, Redis, RabbitMQ, Elasticsearch, etc.). Uses etcd for state management, supports temporary auto-cleanup, metrics via Prometheus, and API-key authentication.
Get the Peanut source
Clone the repository and explore it locally.
git clone https://github.com/Clivern/Peanut.gitcd Peanut# follow the project's README for install & configurationNeed it deployed, integrated, or customized instead? DEV.co ships production installs.
Best use cases
Implementation considerations
- Requires etcd cluster or single-node instance for state management; adds operational complexity if not already present in infrastructure.
- Docker daemon must be running and accessible; binary installation on Linux involves manual etcd and Docker setup (no automated package managers like apt/yum support documented).
- API authentication is API-key based (x-api-key header); no RBAC, OAuth, or mTLS mentioned. Protect the API endpoint and key distribution in production contexts.
- Services are deployed as individual Docker containers with random ports; network isolation and firewall rules must be managed separately.
- No documented upgrade path for existing service instances; upgrading Peanut itself requires stopping/restarting which may disrupt running services.
When to avoid it — and what to weigh
- Production workloads — Latest release is v0.7.0 from Feb 2023; project shows activity but is not production-hardened. No mention of HA, backup/restore, or data persistence guarantees.
- Complex multi-cluster orchestration — Single-node or small-team focused; requires etcd for coordination but no Kubernetes integration. Use Helm or Terraform for larger infrastructure.
- Strict dependency on non-Docker runtimes — Only Docker/docker-compose supported as containerization driver. If you require Podman, containerd, or other runtimes, this tool does not support them.
- Air-gapped or offline deployments — Relies on pulling Docker images at runtime; no offline image bundling or registry mirroring documented. Requires network access to Docker Hub or configured registry.
License & commercial use
MIT License (permissive OSI license). Allows commercial use, modification, and distribution with minimal restrictions; requires only attribution and inclusion of the license notice.
MIT is a permissive license compatible with commercial use and closed-source derivatives. No additional licensing agreements, support contracts, or per-seat fees are indicated in the provided data. Verify with maintainer if commercial support is needed.
DEV.co evaluation signals
Editorial assessment — not user reviews. Directional, with an explicit confidence level.
| Signal | Assessment |
|---|---|
| Maintenance | Moderate |
| Documentation | Adequate |
| License clarity | Clear |
| Deployment complexity | Moderate |
| DEV.co fit | Good |
| Assessment confidence | Medium |
API uses static x-api-key authentication with no rate limiting mentioned; protect the API endpoint with network-level controls (firewall, reverse proxy). No encryption-at-rest for etcd documented. Container images pulled from Docker Hub without signature verification. No security audit history provided. Requires review before use with sensitive data.
Alternatives to consider
Docker Compose + bash scripts
Manual but fine-grained control; no additional tool overhead. Requires manually writing/versioning compose files; not suitable for dynamic provisioning.
Helm + Kubernetes
Production-grade orchestration with strong ecosystem; requires K8s cluster and steeper learning curve. Overkill for simple local dev/test but better for multi-team/multi-cloud scenarios.
Testcontainers (Java/Go/Python libraries)
Language-specific; integrates directly into test code and lifecycle; no separate service needed. Limited to services with library support; not suitable for non-code contexts like manual testing or pipelines.
Build on Peanut with DEV.co software developers
Deploy Peanut on a Linux machine or integrate into your CI/CD pipeline to provision services on demand. Start with the bash install script or download the binary.
Talk to DEV.coRelated open-source tools
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Related on DEV.co
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Peanut FAQ
Can I use Peanut to manage services across multiple machines?
What happens if Peanut crashes while services are running?
Does Peanut support custom Docker images or only pre-configured ones?
How is data persisted for stateful services like PostgreSQL?
Senior engineers for your next build
Teams bring us Peanut after the evaluation, when it needs to work in production. DEV.co delivers custom software development services — integration, hardening, monitoring, and maintenance for open-source devops systems.
Ready to streamline your dev environment?
Deploy Peanut on a Linux machine or integrate into your CI/CD pipeline to provision services on demand. Start with the bash install script or download the binary.