head to head · open source
nginx vs amnezia-client
nginx has 31,681 GitHub stars, 8,302 forks, 468 open issues and last shipped 3 days ago. amnezia-client has 15,055 stars, 1,154 forks, 1,126 open issues and last shipped yesterday. nginx leads on adoption by 110% (31,681 vs 15,055 stars). nginx is written in C under BSD-2-Clause; amnezia-client is written in C++ under GPL-3.0. nginx has attracted 26% as many forks as stars, amnezia-client 8%. amnezia-client 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
| nginx | amnezia-client | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 32K | ★ 15K |
| License | BSD-2-Clause | GPL-3.0 |
| Written in | C | C++ |
| Last push | 2026-09-16 | 2026-09-18 |
| Forks | ⑂ 8.3K | ⑂ 1.2K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick nginx if
- You weight community size — 32K stars and counting
- You want the BSD-2-Clause license terms
- Your stack matches C
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick amnezia-client if
- You want the amnezia-client feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches C++
- You evaluated both and amnezia-client fits your workflow better
About nginx
NGINX is the official open source repository for the NGINX web server and its load balancer, reverse proxy, API gateway and content cache roles, written in C under the BSD 2 Clause licence and aimed at system administrators, DevOps engineers and platform teams who need to serve, balance and protect their own HTTP traffic.
read the full nginx overview →
About amnezia-client
Amnezia VPN Client is an open source, GPL 3.0 licensed VPN client for Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, and iOS that connects to a VPN and also deploys a self hosted VPN server onto hardware the user already controls.
read the full amnezia-client overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is nginx or amnezia-client more popular?
nginx has 31,681 GitHub stars and amnezia-client has 15,055. nginx has the larger community by that measure.
Are nginx and amnezia-client free?
Both are open source. nginx is licensed under BSD-2-Clause and amnezia-client under GPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between nginx and amnezia-client?
nginx is written in C and amnezia-client in C++. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, nginx or amnezia-client?
Choose nginx if you want the larger community (31,681 stars) or its BSD-2-Clause licence terms. Choose amnezia-client if its feature set, stack or GPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.