head to head · open source
frp vs meridian
frp has 110,457 GitHub stars, 15,304 forks, 48 open issues and last shipped yesterday. meridian has 500 stars, 27 forks, 15 open issues and last shipped yesterday. frp leads on adoption by 21,991% (110,457 vs 500 stars). frp is written in Go under Apache-2.0; meridian is written in Python under MIT. frp has attracted 14% as many forks as stars, meridian 5%. meridian was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (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 | meridian | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 110K | ★ 500 |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Go | Python |
| Last push | 2026-11-05 | 2026-11-05 |
| Forks | ⑂ 15K | ⑂ 27 |
| 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 meridian if
- You want the meridian feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and meridian 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 meridian
Meridian Deploy it right. Share it easily. One command turns a fresh VPS into a hardened self hosted VPN server, with a built in web panel and a connection page for each person. A VPN that connects can still give itself away: an open admin port, a self signed certificate, a container that skips the firewall. Meridian sets up every layer on a fresh Debian or Ubuntu VPS, tests the server with real traffic, and gives you two interfaces: a connection page for each person who connects and a web panel to manage people and servers from any browser. When an address gets blocked, add a relay, turn on domain mode, or move…
read the full meridian overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is frp or meridian more popular?
frp has 110,457 GitHub stars and meridian has 500. frp has the larger community by that measure.
Are frp and meridian free?
Both are open source. frp is licensed under Apache-2.0 and meridian under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between frp and meridian?
frp is written in Go and meridian in Python. 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 meridian?
Choose frp if you want the larger community (110,457 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose meridian if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.