head to head · open source
caddy vs traefik
caddy has 75,840 GitHub stars, 4,970 forks, 286 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. traefik has 64,895 stars, 6,201 forks, 939 open issues and last shipped yesterday. caddy leads on adoption by 17% (75,840 vs 64,895 stars). caddy is written in Go under Apache-2.0; traefik is written in Go under MIT. caddy has attracted 7% as many forks as stars, traefik 10%. traefik was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 3 topic tags (go, golang, reverse-proxy), 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 | traefik | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 76K | ★ 65K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Go | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-18 |
| Forks | ⑂ 5.0K | ⑂ 6.2K |
| 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 traefik if
- You want the traefik feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and traefik 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 traefik
Traefik — pronounced traffic — is "The Cloud Native Application Proxy": an MIT licensed, Go based HTTP reverse proxy and load balancer that watches your orchestrator or service registry and generates its own routes, aimed at teams running microservices on Docker, Swarm, Kubernetes, Consul, Etcd, Rancher v2, or Amazon ECS.
read the full traefik overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is caddy or traefik more popular?
caddy has 75,840 GitHub stars and traefik has 64,895. caddy has the larger community by that measure.
Are caddy and traefik free?
Both are open source. caddy is licensed under Apache-2.0 and traefik under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between caddy and traefik?
caddy is written in Go and traefik 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 traefik?
Choose caddy if you want the larger community (75,840 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose traefik if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.