head to head · open source
nginx vs bind9
nginx has 31,793 GitHub stars, 8,313 forks, 468 open issues and last shipped 5 days ago. bind9 has 779 stars, 186 forks, 0 open issues and last shipped today. nginx leads on adoption by 3,981% (31,793 vs 779 stars). nginx is written in C under BSD-2-Clause; bind9 is written in C under MPL-2.0. nginx has attracted 26% as many forks as stars, bind9 24%. bind9 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 | bind9 | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 32K | ★ 779 |
| License | BSD-2-Clause | MPL-2.0 |
| Written in | C | C |
| Last push | 2026-09-30 | 2026-10-05 |
| Forks | ⑂ 8.3K | ⑂ 186 |
| 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 bind9 if
- You want the bind9 feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MPL-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches C
- You evaluated both and bind9 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 bind9
BIND 9 is a complete, highly portable open source implementation of the Domain Name System protocol, written in C, for operators and organisations that need to run authoritative, recursive, or forwarding DNS infrastructure themselves.
read the full bind9 overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is nginx or bind9 more popular?
nginx has 31,793 GitHub stars and bind9 has 779. nginx has the larger community by that measure.
Are nginx and bind9 free?
Both are open source. nginx is licensed under BSD-2-Clause and bind9 under MPL-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between nginx and bind9?
nginx is written in C and bind9 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 bind9?
Choose nginx if you want the larger community (31,793 stars) or its BSD-2-Clause licence terms. Choose bind9 if its feature set, stack or MPL-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.