head to head · open source
frp vs nginx-proxy
frp has 110,395 GitHub stars, 15,306 forks, 48 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. nginx-proxy has 19,933 stars, 3,037 forks, 327 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. frp leads on adoption by 454% (110,395 vs 19,933 stars). frp is written in Go under Apache-2.0; nginx-proxy is written in Python under MIT. frp has attracted 14% as many forks as stars, nginx-proxy 15%. frp 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 | nginx-proxy | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 110K | ★ 20K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Go | Python |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 15K | ⑂ 3.0K |
| 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 nginx-proxy if
- You want the nginx-proxy feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and nginx-proxy 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 nginx-proxy
nginx proxy nginx proxy sets up a container running nginx and docker gen. docker gen generates reverse proxy configs for nginx and reloads nginx when containers are started and stopped. See Automated Nginx Reverse Proxy for Docker for why you might want to use this. Usage To run it: Then start any containers (here an nginx container) you want proxied with an env var VIRTUAL HOST=subdomain.yourdomain.com Provided your DNS is setup to resolve foo.bar.com to the host running nginx proxy, a request to will then be routed to a container with the VIRTUAL HOST env var set to foo.bar.com (in this case, the your proxied…
read the full nginx-proxy overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is frp or nginx-proxy more popular?
frp has 110,395 GitHub stars and nginx-proxy has 19,933. frp has the larger community by that measure.
Are frp and nginx-proxy free?
Both are open source. frp is licensed under Apache-2.0 and nginx-proxy under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between frp and nginx-proxy?
frp is written in Go and nginx-proxy 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 nginx-proxy?
Choose frp if you want the larger community (110,395 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose nginx-proxy if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.