head to head · open source
caddy vs DNS-collector
caddy has 77,495 GitHub stars, 5,098 forks, 286 open issues and last shipped today. DNS-collector has 570 stars, 89 forks, 2 open issues and last shipped 6 days ago. caddy leads on adoption by 13,496% (77,495 vs 570 stars). caddy is written in Go under Apache-2.0; DNS-collector is written in Go under MIT. caddy has attracted 7% as many forks as stars, DNS-collector 16%. caddy was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (golang), so they are genuine substitutes rather than adjacent tools.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
← all 20902 open source comparisons
Side by side
| caddy | DNS-collector | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 77K | ★ 570 |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Go | Go |
| Last push | 2026-10-08 | 2026-10-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 5.1K | ⑂ 89 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick caddy if
- You weight community size — 77K stars and counting
- You want the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick DNS-collector if
- You want the DNS-collector feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and DNS-collector fits your workflow better
About caddy
Caddy is a Go based, Apache 2.0 licensed HTTP/1.1, HTTP/2, and HTTP/3 web server and reverse proxy that obtains and renews TLS certificates automatically by default, built for operators and teams who want every site on HTTPS without maintaining a separate certificate workflow.
read the full caddy overview →
About DNS-collector
DNS collector is a lightweight, open source DNS telemetry pipeline in Go that captures queries and responses from DNS servers and forwards normalized, enriched events to monitoring, analytics, and security systems.
read the full DNS-collector overview →
More in Infrastructure & Operations
Related comparisons
More Networking & Connectivity projects
Compare either of these against the rest of the Networking & Connectivity field.
Frequently asked questions
Is caddy or DNS-collector more popular?
caddy has 77,495 GitHub stars and DNS-collector has 570. caddy has the larger community by that measure.
Are caddy and DNS-collector free?
Both are open source. caddy is licensed under Apache-2.0 and DNS-collector under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between caddy and DNS-collector?
caddy is written in Go and DNS-collector in Go. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, caddy or DNS-collector?
Choose caddy if you want the larger community (77,495 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose DNS-collector if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.