head to head · open source
SafeLine vs grpc-gateway
SafeLine has 22,606 GitHub stars, 1,533 forks, 69 open issues and last shipped 8 days ago. grpc-gateway has 20,001 stars, 2,409 forks, 149 open issues and last shipped yesterday. SafeLine leads on adoption by 13% (22,606 vs 20,001 stars). SafeLine is written in Go under GPL-3.0; grpc-gateway is written in Go under BSD-3-Clause. SafeLine has attracted 7% as many forks as stars, grpc-gateway 12%. grpc-gateway was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee.
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
| SafeLine | grpc-gateway | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 23K | ★ 20K |
| License | GPL-3.0 | BSD-3-Clause |
| Written in | Go | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-10 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.5K | ⑂ 2.4K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick SafeLine if
- You weight community size — 23K stars and counting
- You want the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick grpc-gateway if
- You want the grpc-gateway feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the BSD-3-Clause license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and grpc-gateway fits your workflow better
About SafeLine
SafeLine is a self hosted web application firewall and reverse proxy, written in Go and licensed under GPL 3.0, that filters, monitors, and blocks malicious HTTP/S traffic before it reaches a web application — built for developers, AppSec engineers, and blue teams who want to run edge protection on their own infrastructure.
read the full SafeLine overview →
About grpc-gateway
gRPC Gateway is a plugin for protoc , the Google protocol buffers compiler. It reads protobuf service definitions and generates a reverse proxy server that translates a RESTful HTTP API into gRPC. The generated server follows the google.api.http annotations attached to those service definitions, so a single set of protobuf services can be exposed in both gRPC and RESTful style at the same time. It lives in the gRPC ecosystem, is written in Go, and is distributed under the BSD 3 Clause license.
read the full grpc-gateway overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is SafeLine or grpc-gateway more popular?
SafeLine has 22,606 GitHub stars and grpc-gateway has 20,001. SafeLine has the larger community by that measure.
Are SafeLine and grpc-gateway free?
Both are open source. SafeLine is licensed under GPL-3.0 and grpc-gateway under BSD-3-Clause. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between SafeLine and grpc-gateway?
SafeLine is written in Go and grpc-gateway 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, SafeLine or grpc-gateway?
Choose SafeLine if you want the larger community (22,606 stars) or its GPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose grpc-gateway if its feature set, stack or BSD-3-Clause licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.