head to head · open source
frp vs coredns
frp has 110,395 GitHub stars, 15,306 forks, 48 open issues and last shipped yesterday. coredns has 14,403 stars, 2,553 forks, 282 open issues and last shipped yesterday. frp leads on adoption by 666% (110,395 vs 14,403 stars). frp is written in Go under Apache-2.0; coredns is written in Go under Apache-2.0. frp has attracted 14% as many forks as stars, coredns 18%. frp was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (go), 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 | coredns | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 110K | ★ 14K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | Go |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 15K | ⑂ 2.6K |
| 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 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 frp
frp README 中文文档 Sponsors frp is an open source project with its ongoing development made possible entirely by the support of our awesome sponsors. If you'd like to join them, please consider sponsoring frp's development. Gold Sponsors High performance residential and ISP proxies for developers 90M+ residential IPs worldwide. Rotating IPs, sticky sessions, and traffic that never expires. From $0.55/GB. Use RAPID10 for 10% off. Try it for free. The complete IDE crafted for professional Go developers The sovereign cloud that puts you in control An open source, self hosted alternative to public clouds, built for…
About coredns
CoreDNS is a DNS server/forwarder, written in Go, that chains plugins. Each plugin performs a (DNS) function. CoreDNS is a Cloud Native Computing Foundation graduated project. CoreDNS is a fast and flexible DNS server. The key word here is flexible : with CoreDNS you are able to do what you want with your DNS data by utilizing plugins. If some functionality is not provided out of the box you can add it by writing a plugin. CoreDNS can listen for DNS requests coming in over: UDP/TCP (go'old DNS). TLS DoT (RFC 7858). DNS over HTTP/2 DoH (RFC 8484). DNS over HTTP/3 DoH3 DNS over QUIC DoQ (RFC 9250). gRPC (not a…
read the full coredns overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is frp or coredns more popular?
frp has 110,395 GitHub stars and coredns has 14,403. frp has the larger community by that measure.
Are frp and coredns free?
Both are open source. frp is licensed under Apache-2.0 and coredns under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between frp and coredns?
frp 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, frp or coredns?
Choose frp if you want the larger community (110,395 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.