head to head · open source
frp vs traefik
frp has 109,502 GitHub stars, 15,213 forks, 48 open issues and last shipped 4 days ago. traefik has 64,895 stars, 6,201 forks, 939 open issues and last shipped yesterday. frp leads on adoption by 69% (109,502 vs 64,895 stars). frp is written in Go under Apache-2.0; traefik is written in Go under MIT. frp has attracted 14% as many forks as stars, traefik 10%. traefik was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (go, 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 | traefik | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 110K | ★ 65K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Go | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-15 | 2026-09-18 |
| Forks | ⑂ 15K | ⑂ 6.2K |
| 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 traefik if
- You want the traefik feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and traefik 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 traefik
Traefik — pronounced traffic — is "The Cloud Native Application Proxy": an MIT licensed, Go based HTTP reverse proxy and load balancer that watches your orchestrator or service registry and generates its own routes, aimed at teams running microservices on Docker, Swarm, Kubernetes, Consul, Etcd, Rancher v2, or Amazon ECS.
read the full traefik overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is frp or traefik more popular?
frp has 109,502 GitHub stars and traefik has 64,895. frp has the larger community by that measure.
Are frp and traefik free?
Both are open source. frp is licensed under Apache-2.0 and traefik under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between frp and traefik?
frp is written in Go and traefik 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 traefik?
Choose frp if you want the larger community (109,502 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose traefik if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.