head to head · open source
caddy vs dns.toys
caddy has 78,984 GitHub stars, 5,252 forks, 286 open issues and last shipped yesterday. dns.toys has 2,833 stars, 190 forks, 10 open issues and last shipped 9 months ago. caddy leads on adoption by 2,688% (78,984 vs 2,833 stars). caddy is written in Go under Apache-2.0; dns.toys is written in Go under MIT. caddy has attracted 7% as many forks as stars, dns.toys 7%. caddy 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
| caddy | dns.toys | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 79K | ★ 2.8K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Go | Go |
| Last push | 2026-11-11 | 2026-02-26 |
| Forks | ⑂ 5.3K | ⑂ 190 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick caddy if
- You weight community size — 79K 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.toys if
- You want the dns.toys feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and dns.toys fits your workflow better
About caddy
a project Every site on HTTPS Caddy is an extensible server platform that uses TLS by default. Releases · Documentation · Get Help Powered by Special thanks to: Warp, built for coding with multiple AI agents Available for MacOS, Linux, & Windows Menu Features Install Build from source For development With version information and/or plugins Quick start Overview Full documentation Getting help About Features Easy configuration with the Caddyfile Powerful configuration with its native JSON config Dynamic configuration with the JSON API Config adapters if you don't like JSON Automatic HTTPS by default ZeroSSL and…
read the full caddy overview →
About dns.toys
dns.toys is a DNS server that takes creative liberties with the DNS protocol to offer handy utilities and services that are easily accessible via the command line. For docs, visit www.dns.toys Sample commands Running locally Docker Or using docker compose: From source Clone the repo Copy config.sample.toml to config.toml and edit the config Make sure you have a copy of the cities15000.txt file at the root of this directory (instructions are in the config.sample.toml file) Make sure to download the wordnet from Wordnet website.(more instructions are in the config.sample.toml file) Extract the tarball and rename…
read the full dns.toys overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is caddy or dns.toys more popular?
caddy has 78,984 GitHub stars and dns.toys has 2,833. caddy has the larger community by that measure.
Are caddy and dns.toys free?
Both are open source. caddy is licensed under Apache-2.0 and dns.toys under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between caddy and dns.toys?
caddy is written in Go and dns.toys 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.toys?
Choose caddy if you want the larger community (78,984 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose dns.toys if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.