head to head · open source
caddy vs goshs
caddy has 79,049 GitHub stars, 5,266 forks, 286 open issues and last shipped yesterday. goshs has 1,014 stars, 61 forks, 0 open issues and last shipped yesterday. caddy leads on adoption by 7,696% (79,049 vs 1,014 stars). caddy is written in Go under Apache-2.0; goshs is written in Go under MIT. caddy has attracted 7% as many forks as stars, goshs 6%. caddy was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (golang, http-server), 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 | goshs | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 79K | ★ 1.0K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Go | Go |
| Last push | 2026-11-14 | 2026-11-14 |
| Forks | ⑂ 5.3K | ⑂ 61 |
| 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 goshs if
- You want the goshs feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and goshs 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 goshs
You're mid engagement. You need to transfer a file, catch an SMB hash, or stand up a quick HTTPS server — and python3 m http.server won't cut it. goshs is a single binary file server built for the moments when you need more than Python's SimpleHTTPServer but don't want to configure Apache. HTTP/S, WebDAV, FTP/SFTP, SMB, LDAP/S, basic auth, share links, DNS/SMTP callbacks, NTLM hash capture + cracking — all from one command. Demo Try it out yourself: demo.goshs.de Quick Start Documentation For a detailed documentation go to docs.goshs.de Features Installation 🐚 Shell completion goshs can install tab completion…
read the full goshs overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is caddy or goshs more popular?
caddy has 79,049 GitHub stars and goshs has 1,014. caddy has the larger community by that measure.
Are caddy and goshs free?
Both are open source. caddy is licensed under Apache-2.0 and goshs under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between caddy and goshs?
caddy is written in Go and goshs 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 goshs?
Choose caddy if you want the larger community (79,049 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose goshs if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.