A Pelican panel alternative that runs the same eggs
Pelican keeps Pterodactyl’s design: a PHP panel, plus Wings and Docker on each machine. Zelie runs the same eggs from one binary with its own containerd, installs with one command, updates itself from the panel, and runs websites and databases beside the game servers.
Updated October 2026
01
Zelie and Pelican side by side
Install and upkeep
Install
- Zelie
- YesOne command, a few minutes
- Pelican
- PartlyA manual guide
No PHP stack to run
- Zelie
- YesOne Go binary
- Pelican
- NoPHP, Laravel and a web server
Runs without Docker
- Zelie
- YesIts own containerd
- Pelican
- NoWings needs Docker
Light on memory
- Zelie
- YesUnder 66 MB, checked on every change
- Pelican
- PartlyAbout 230 MB, before the database
Updates from the panel
- Zelie
- YesOne click, rolls back by itself if it fails
- Pelican
- NoBy hand, with commands
Game servers
Pterodactyl and Pelican eggs
- Zelie
- Yes21 games ready, any other by its link
- Pelican
- Yes
Console, files, SFTP, schedules
- Zelie
- Yes
- Pelican
- Yes
Players and RCON tools
- Zelie
- YesRust and Minecraft, a player list for some Steam games
- Pelican
- NoNot built in
Safe passwords by default
- Zelie
- YesRCON and admin passwords get a random value
- Pelican
- PartlyAs the egg sets them
Steam updates
- Zelie
- YesChecks each hour, updates when nobody plays
- Pelican
- PartlyOn start, if the egg does it
Apps and databases
Deploy from GitHub on push
- Zelie
- Yes
- Pelican
- No
Deploys without downtime, one-click rollback
- Zelie
- YesLast five versions kept
- Pelican
- No
Automatic HTTPS for apps
- Zelie
- Yes
- Pelican
- No
Databases
- Zelie
- YesPostgreSQL, MariaDB, Redis, with a data browser, linkable to game servers too
- Pelican
- PartlyMySQL for game servers
Metrics
- Zelie
- YesRequests, errors, memory and CPU for a day
- Pelican
- PartlyLive memory and CPU
Security
Two-step login
- Zelie
- YesRequired, with a passkey or an app
- Pelican
- PartlyOptional
Nothing on the network runs as root
- Zelie
- YesThe root part has no port
- Pelican
- NoWings runs as root on a public port
Secrets the panel cannot read back
- Zelie
- Yes
- Pelican
- No
Encrypted backups to S3
- Zelie
- YesEncrypted on the server
- Pelican
- PartlyTo S3, not encrypted
Coming later
Several machines from one panel
- Zelie
- Planned
- Pelican
- Yes
Sub-users with their own permissions
- Zelie
- Planned
- Pelican
- Yes
- Yes
- Partly
- Planned
- No
Pelican is described as it installs by default. Its memory figure was measured on a live server: the panel, the queue worker and Wings at about 230 MB, before the database and Docker.
02
What Pelican does well
Pelican is made for game servers and does that well. One panel manages many machines, players can get their own access to a single server, and the egg format it uses is the one the game server community writes for. If you need several machines or sub-users today, stay with Pelican: Zelie has neither yet.
03
What Zelie does differently
- One binary, no PHP, no Docker. Zelie is one file of about 50 MB with its state in SQLite. Its own processes stay under 66 MB of memory when idle, checked on every change.
- One command to install, one click to update. A new release installs from the Server page. Game servers keep running, and if the new version does not come up within a minute and a half, the old one is put back.
- Root has no port. The part of Zelie that runs as root listens on no network port. Wings runs as root on a public port.
- Two-step login for everyone, with a passkey or an authenticator app. In Pelican it is optional.
- Players and RCON built in. For Rust and Minecraft: who is online, who was here, chat, kicks, bans and notes, with nothing extra to install.
- Apps and databases beside the games. Deploy a site or a Discord bot from GitHub with HTTPS, and run PostgreSQL, MariaDB or Redis for it, under the same login.
04
Moving a server from Pelican
Zelie reads Pelican eggs as they are, and 21 games come from Pelican’s own egg repositories. A server is its egg and its files, so moving one takes a few minutes.
- 01Install Zelie and set up its pool of game ports.
- 02Create the server from the same egg. If it is not in the list, import the egg by its link.
- 03Stop the old server, then download its files over SFTP and upload them to Zelie over SFTP or with the file manager.
- 04Check the startup variables and the ports, then start it.
Both can share a machine while you try: Wings uses port 2022 for SFTP and Zelie 2222. Both want ports 80 and 443 for a domain, so reach Zelie through a Cloudflare Tunnel, and give each panel its own range of game ports.
05
Questions
Do Pelican eggs work in Zelie?
Yes. Zelie reads eggs in the Pelican and the Pterodactyl format. 21 games are ready to pick, taken from Pelican’s egg repositories, and any other egg can be imported by its link.
Is Zelie a fork of Pelican?
No. It is separate software, written in Go. It reads the egg format Pelican and Pterodactyl use.
Does Zelie support several nodes or sub-users?
Not yet. Zelie manages the machine it is installed on, and only administrators log in. Both are planned.
Install Zelie
Run this as root on a Debian or Ubuntu server. It checks the release’s signature, installs Zelie and asks how people will reach the panel.
curl -fsSL https://github.com/Caria-Core/zelie/releases/latest/download/install.sh | shFree on a single server. Read how the install works first if you want to know what it changes.