head to head · open source
caddy vs traefik
caddy has 78,660 GitHub stars, 5,232 forks, 286 open issues and last shipped yesterday. traefik has 65,442 stars, 6,318 forks, 939 open issues and last shipped yesterday. caddy leads on adoption by 20% (78,660 vs 65,442 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%. caddy was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (go, 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 | traefik | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 79K | ★ 65K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Go | Go |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 5.2K | ⑂ 6.3K |
| 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 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
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 traefik
Traefik (pronounced traffic ) is a modern HTTP reverse proxy and load balancer that makes deploying microservices easy. Traefik integrates with your existing infrastructure components (Docker, Swarm mode, Kubernetes, Consul, Etcd, Rancher v2, Amazon ECS, ...) and configures itself automatically and dynamically. Pointing Traefik at your orchestrator should be the only configuration step you need. . Overview . Features . Supported backends . Quickstart . Web UI . Documentation . . Support . Release cycle . Contributing . Maintainers . Credits . :warning: When migrating to a new major version of Traefik, please…
read the full traefik overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is caddy or traefik more popular?
caddy has 78,660 GitHub stars and traefik has 65,442. 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 (78,660 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose traefik if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.