head to head · open source
nginx-proxy vs cloudflared
nginx-proxy has 19,914 GitHub stars, 3,045 forks, 327 open issues and last shipped yesterday. cloudflared has 15,853 stars, 1,452 forks, 545 open issues and last shipped yesterday. nginx-proxy leads on adoption by 26% (19,914 vs 15,853 stars). nginx-proxy is written in Python under MIT; cloudflared is written in Go under Apache-2.0. nginx-proxy has attracted 15% as many forks as stars, cloudflared 9%. cloudflared 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
| nginx-proxy | cloudflared | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 20K | ★ 16K |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Python | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-21 | 2026-09-21 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.0K | ⑂ 1.5K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick nginx-proxy if
- You weight community size — 20K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick cloudflared if
- You want the cloudflared 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 cloudflared fits your workflow better
About nginx-proxy
nginx proxy is an automated Nginx reverse proxy for Docker that watches containers start and stop and rewrites its own proxy configuration in response, and it is for anyone running containerised services who needs hostname based routing without hand editing nginx configuration files.
read the full nginx-proxy overview →
About cloudflared
cloudflared is the open source command line client and tunneling daemon for Cloudflare Tunnel, a Go program under the Apache 2.0 licence that proxies traffic from the Cloudflare network to your origins so a webserver can stay closed to the public internet, and it is aimed at operators, platform teams and developers who need to publish HTTP services or reach private origins without opening inbound firewall ports.
read the full cloudflared overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is nginx-proxy or cloudflared more popular?
nginx-proxy has 19,914 GitHub stars and cloudflared has 15,853. nginx-proxy has the larger community by that measure.
Are nginx-proxy and cloudflared free?
Both are open source. nginx-proxy is licensed under MIT and cloudflared under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between nginx-proxy and cloudflared?
nginx-proxy is written in Python and cloudflared 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, nginx-proxy or cloudflared?
Choose nginx-proxy if you want the larger community (19,914 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose cloudflared if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.