head to head · open source
caddy vs sdns
caddy has 76,190 GitHub stars, 5,021 forks, 286 open issues and last shipped yesterday. sdns has 1,086 stars, 72 forks, 0 open issues and last shipped yesterday. caddy leads on adoption by 6,916% (76,190 vs 1,086 stars). caddy is written in Go under Apache-2.0; sdns is written in Go under MIT. caddy has attracted 7% as many forks as stars, sdns 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 | sdns | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 76K | ★ 1.1K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Go | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-30 | 2026-09-30 |
| Forks | ⑂ 5.0K | ⑂ 72 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick caddy if
- You weight community size — 76K 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 sdns if
- You want the sdns feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and sdns 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 sdns
sdns is a high performance recursive DNS resolver written in Go that resolves from the root, validates answers against DNSSEC trust anchors and serves DNS over UDP, TCP, TLS, HTTPS and QUIC, intended for operators and privacy focused self hosters who want to run their own resolving name server instead of relying on a third party resolver.
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Frequently asked questions
Is caddy or sdns more popular?
caddy has 76,190 GitHub stars and sdns has 1,086. caddy has the larger community by that measure.
Are caddy and sdns free?
Both are open source. caddy is licensed under Apache-2.0 and sdns under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between caddy and sdns?
caddy is written in Go and sdns 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 sdns?
Choose caddy if you want the larger community (76,190 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose sdns if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.