head to head · open source
cloudflared vs coredns
cloudflared has 16,043 GitHub stars, 1,468 forks, 545 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. coredns has 14,361 stars, 2,539 forks, 282 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. cloudflared leads on adoption by 12% (16,043 vs 14,361 stars). cloudflared is written in Go under Apache-2.0; coredns is written in Go under Apache-2.0. cloudflared has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, coredns 18%. cloudflared 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.
← all 20902 open source comparisons
Side by side
| cloudflared | coredns | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 16K | ★ 14K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | Go |
| Last push | 2026-10-05 | 2026-10-05 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.5K | ⑂ 2.5K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick cloudflared if
- You weight community size — 16K 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 coredns if
- You want the coredns feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and coredns fits your workflow better
About cloudflared
cloudflared is the open source command line client and tunneling daemon for Cloudflare Tunnel, a Go program under the Apache 2.0 licence that proxies traffic from the Cloudflare network to your origins so a webserver can stay closed to the public internet, and it is aimed at operators, platform teams and developers who need to publish HTTP services or reach private origins without opening inbound firewall ports.
read the full cloudflared overview →
About coredns
CoreDNS is a CNCF graduated DNS server and forwarder written in Go that resolves queries through a chain of plugins, aimed at platform and infrastructure engineers who run DNS for Kubernetes clusters, service discovery, or authoritative zones and need to extend its behaviour without forking the core.
read the full coredns overview →
More in Infrastructure & Operations
Related comparisons
More Networking & Connectivity projects
Compare either of these against the rest of the Networking & Connectivity field.
Frequently asked questions
Is cloudflared or coredns more popular?
cloudflared has 16,043 GitHub stars and coredns has 14,361. cloudflared has the larger community by that measure.
Are cloudflared and coredns free?
Both are open source. cloudflared is licensed under Apache-2.0 and coredns under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between cloudflared and coredns?
cloudflared is written in Go and coredns 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, cloudflared or coredns?
Choose cloudflared if you want the larger community (16,043 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose coredns if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.