head to head · open source
caddy vs gately
caddy has 79,026 GitHub stars, 5,258 forks, 286 open issues and last shipped yesterday. gately has 505 stars, 54 forks, 3 open issues and last shipped today. caddy leads on adoption by 15,549% (79,026 vs 505 stars). caddy is written in Go under Apache-2.0; gately is written in Go under Apache-2.0. caddy has attracted 7% as many forks as stars, gately 11%. gately was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (acme, 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.
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Side by side
| caddy | gately | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 79K | ★ 505 |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | Go |
| Last push | 2026-11-13 | 2026-11-14 |
| Forks | ⑂ 5.3K | ⑂ 54 |
| 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 gately if
- You want the gately feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and gately 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 gately
Website · Quick start · Install guide · Docs · Download · Changelog English 简体中文 繁體中文 日本語 한국어 Español Français Deutsch Русский Português (Brasil) DNS and NAT traversal, reverse proxy and HTTPS certificates, WAF and intrusion prevention, single sign on and file sharing: everything your home network and servers need at the edge, managed from one console. Run it on a NAS, a soft router or a cloud server and set it all up in your browser. Open source under Apache 2.0; your config and data stay on your own device, and nothing is collected or reported. fnOS users: Gately ships as a native fnOS app. It plugs into the…
read the full gately overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is caddy or gately more popular?
caddy has 79,026 GitHub stars and gately has 505. caddy has the larger community by that measure.
Are caddy and gately free?
Both are open source. caddy is licensed under Apache-2.0 and gately under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between caddy and gately?
caddy is written in Go and gately 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 gately?
Choose caddy if you want the larger community (79,026 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose gately if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.