laranjalaranja vs Mau
Both deploy a NestJS app into your own AWS account rather than hosting it for you. The difference is what you hand over to get there: Mau needs credentials it can use on your behalf, while laranja runs on your machine with the credentials already in your shell and never holds a key.
The short version
- Credentials. laranja asks for nothing — no IAM user to create, no repo to connect. Deploys run locally against your existing credentials.
- Frameworks. Mau is built for NestJS. laranja runs Express and NestJS from the same app code, on AWS or Azure.
- Lock-in. laranja ejects to plain CDK you own, so leaving costs you nothing but the eject command.
- Official status. Mau is the NestJS team's own deploy platform. laranja is independent.
Feature comparison
| laranja | Mau | |
|---|---|---|
| Runs in your own cloud account | ✓ | ✓ |
| Any Node framework | ✓ | NestJS only |
| No keys or repo to hand over | ✓ | — |
| Zero extra IaC to write | ✓ | ✓ |
| Eject to plain IaC you own | ✓ | — |
Last reviewed July 2026. Check Mau's own documentation for its current setup requirements — we'd rather you verify than take our word for it.
Nothing to hand over
laranja synthesizes a CloudFormation template on its server from the structure of your code — your routes, @Cron jobs, and @Queue consumers. That template comes back to your machine, and your local CLI deploys it with your own credentials.
So laranja never has standing access to your account. There is no IAM user to create for it, no role to trust, and nothing to revoke if you stop using it — the blast radius of a laranja compromise is a template generator, not your cloud account. Your source is never executed either; it's read statically.
When Mau is the better pick
If you are all-in on NestJS and want the option blessed by the framework's own team, that is a real advantage and worth weighing. Mau is maintained by the people who maintain NestJS, which is a stronger guarantee of tracking NestJS changes than any third party can offer.
Pick laranja if you also run Express services, want Azure as well as AWS, need to keep cloud credentials to yourself, or want a documented exit to plain CDK. Pick Mau if first-party NestJS support is the thing you value most.
Deploy in one command
Point laranja at an existing NestJS or Express app and deploy it into your own account. No account handover, no YAML.