head to head · open source
nginx vs docktail
nginx has 31,896 GitHub stars, 8,313 forks, 468 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. docktail has 1,282 stars, 48 forks, 5 open issues and last shipped 3 days ago. nginx leads on adoption by 2,388% (31,896 vs 1,282 stars). nginx is written in C under BSD-2-Clause; docktail is written in Go under AGPL-3.0. nginx has attracted 26% as many forks as stars, docktail 4%. nginx 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 | docktail | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 32K | ★ 1.3K |
| License | BSD-2-Clause | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | C | Go |
| Last push | 2026-10-15 | 2026-10-14 |
| Forks | ⑂ 8.3K | ⑂ 48 |
| 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 docktail if
- You want the docktail feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and docktail 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 docktail
DockTail is an AGPL 3.0, Go based tool that watches Docker containers, reads their docktail. labels, and exposes matching containers as native Tailscale Services, for self hosters and infrastructure teams that want tailnet reachable services without a Tailscale device per application.
read the full docktail overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is nginx or docktail more popular?
nginx has 31,896 GitHub stars and docktail has 1,282. nginx has the larger community by that measure.
Are nginx and docktail free?
Both are open source. nginx is licensed under BSD-2-Clause and docktail under AGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between nginx and docktail?
nginx is written in C and docktail 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 or docktail?
Choose nginx if you want the larger community (31,896 stars) or its BSD-2-Clause licence terms. Choose docktail if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.