head to head · open source
frp vs bfe
frp has 109,598 GitHub stars, 15,222 forks, 48 open issues and last shipped 10 days ago. bfe has 6,264 stars, 950 forks, 34 open issues and last shipped yesterday. frp leads on adoption by 1,650% (109,598 vs 6,264 stars). frp is written in Go under Apache-2.0; bfe is written in Go under Apache-2.0. frp has attracted 14% as many forks as stars, bfe 15%. bfe was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (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
| frp | bfe | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 110K | ★ 6.3K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-15 | 2026-09-24 |
| Forks | ⑂ 15K | ⑂ 950 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick frp if
- You weight community size — 110K 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 bfe if
- You want the bfe 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 bfe fits your workflow better
About frp
frp is a fast reverse proxy written in Go that exposes a local server behind a NAT or firewall to the internet, built for operators and developers who need inbound access to machines they cannot port forward.
About bfe
BFE (Beyond Front End) is an open source, Apache 2.0 licensed layer 7 load balancer written in Go, originally built at Baidu and now a Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) sandbox project, intended for platform, infrastructure, and networking engineers who need content based routing and centralized traffic management in front of backend services.
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Frequently asked questions
Is frp or bfe more popular?
frp has 109,598 GitHub stars and bfe has 6,264. frp has the larger community by that measure.
Are frp and bfe free?
Both are open source. frp is licensed under Apache-2.0 and bfe under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between frp and bfe?
frp is written in Go and bfe 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, frp or bfe?
Choose frp if you want the larger community (109,598 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose bfe if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.