head to head · open source
AdGuardHome vs tengine
AdGuardHome has 37,031 GitHub stars, 2,525 forks, 1,253 open issues and last shipped yesterday. tengine has 13,371 stars, 2,502 forks, 502 open issues and last shipped 16 days ago. AdGuardHome leads on adoption by 177% (37,031 vs 13,371 stars). AdGuardHome is written in TypeScript under GPL-3.0; tengine is written in C under BSD-2-Clause. AdGuardHome has attracted 7% as many forks as stars, tengine 19%. AdGuardHome was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
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Side by side
| AdGuardHome | tengine | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 37K | ★ 13K |
| License | GPL-3.0 | BSD-2-Clause |
| Written in | TypeScript | C |
| Last push | 2026-09-22 | 2026-09-07 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.5K | ⑂ 2.5K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick AdGuardHome if
- You weight community size — 37K stars and counting
- You want the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick tengine if
- You want the tengine feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the BSD-2-Clause license terms
- Your stack matches C
- You evaluated both and tengine fits your workflow better
About AdGuardHome
AdGuard Home is a free and open source, network wide DNS server that blocks ads and trackers for every device on a network, aimed at self hosters, homelab operators, and network administrators who want filtering without installing client side software on each device.
read the full AdGuardHome overview →
About tengine
Tengine is a high performance, BSD 2 Clause licensed web server and reverse proxy that is 100% compatible with nginx, built for operators and platform teams that need HTTP/3, Kubernetes Ingress support, dynamic configuration and Chinese cryptographic standards without abandoning their existing nginx configuration.
read the full tengine overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is AdGuardHome or tengine more popular?
AdGuardHome has 37,031 GitHub stars and tengine has 13,371. AdGuardHome has the larger community by that measure.
Are AdGuardHome and tengine free?
Both are open source. AdGuardHome is licensed under GPL-3.0 and tengine under BSD-2-Clause. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between AdGuardHome and tengine?
AdGuardHome is written in TypeScript and tengine in C. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, AdGuardHome or tengine?
Choose AdGuardHome if you want the larger community (37,031 stars) or its GPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose tengine if its feature set, stack or BSD-2-Clause licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.