head to head · open source
caddy vs sliver
caddy has 75,840 GitHub stars, 4,970 forks, 286 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. sliver has 11,852 stars, 1,587 forks, 222 open issues and last shipped yesterday. caddy leads on adoption by 540% (75,840 vs 11,852 stars). caddy is written in Go under Apache-2.0; sliver is written in Go under GPL-3.0. caddy has attracted 7% as many forks as stars, sliver 13%. sliver 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), 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 | sliver | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 76K | ★ 12K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | GPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Go | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-18 |
| Forks | ⑂ 5.0K | ⑂ 1.6K |
| 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 sliver if
- You want the sliver feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and sliver 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 sliver
Sliver is an open source, cross platform adversary emulation and red team framework written in Go, used by security teams of all sizes to perform authorized security testing with implants that support command and control over Mutual TLS (mTLS), WireGuard, HTTP(S), and DNS.
read the full sliver overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is caddy or sliver more popular?
caddy has 75,840 GitHub stars and sliver has 11,852. caddy has the larger community by that measure.
Are caddy and sliver free?
Both are open source. caddy is licensed under Apache-2.0 and sliver under GPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between caddy and sliver?
caddy is written in Go and sliver 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 sliver?
Choose caddy if you want the larger community (75,840 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose sliver if its feature set, stack or GPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.