head to head · open source
traefik vs docktail
traefik has 65,288 GitHub stars, 6,258 forks, 939 open issues and last shipped yesterday. docktail has 1,287 stars, 49 forks, 5 open issues and last shipped 6 days ago. traefik leads on adoption by 4,973% (65,288 vs 1,287 stars). traefik is written in Go under MIT; docktail is written in Go under AGPL-3.0. traefik has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, docktail 4%. traefik was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (docker, 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
| traefik | docktail | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 65K | ★ 1.3K |
| License | MIT | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Go | Go |
| Last push | 2026-10-19 | 2026-10-14 |
| Forks | ⑂ 6.3K | ⑂ 49 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick traefik if
- You weight community size — 65K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick docktail if
- You want the docktail feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and docktail fits your workflow better
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 →
About docktail
🍸 DockTail Unleash your containers as Tailscale Services. DockTail watches Docker containers, reads docktail. labels, and exposes matching containers as Tailscale Services. App containers do not need published Docker ports by default; DockTail proxies directly to their Docker network IPs. Why DockTail? DockTail uses native Tailscale Services, not per container Tailscale devices. ¹ Depends on proxy and Docker network setup. ² Depends on the sidecar template and app network setup. ³ You configure how the service host reaches the backend yourself. ⁴ ScaleTail is template based, so each app usually starts from its…
read the full docktail overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is traefik or docktail more popular?
traefik has 65,288 GitHub stars and docktail has 1,287. traefik has the larger community by that measure.
Are traefik and docktail free?
Both are open source. traefik is licensed under MIT and docktail under AGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between traefik and docktail?
traefik is written in Go and docktail 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, traefik or docktail?
Choose traefik if you want the larger community (65,288 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose docktail if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.