head to head · open source
nginx vs FreeDomain
nginx has 31,832 GitHub stars, 8,312 forks, 468 open issues and last shipped 10 days ago. FreeDomain has 2,258 stars, 31 forks, 1 open issues and last shipped yesterday. nginx leads on adoption by 1,310% (31,832 vs 2,258 stars). nginx is written in C under BSD-2-Clause; FreeDomain is written in various languages under MIT. nginx has attracted 26% as many forks as stars, FreeDomain 1%. FreeDomain 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 | FreeDomain | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 32K | ★ 2.3K |
| License | BSD-2-Clause | MIT |
| Written in | C | — |
| Last push | 2026-09-30 | 2026-10-09 |
| Forks | ⑂ 8.3K | ⑂ 31 |
| 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 FreeDomain if
- You want the FreeDomain feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- You evaluated both and FreeDomain 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 FreeDomain
FreeDomain, also called Intent, is a non profit service that hands developers and creators permanent, free subdomains under shared parent domains such as .int.yt .
read the full FreeDomain overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is nginx or FreeDomain more popular?
nginx has 31,832 GitHub stars and FreeDomain has 2,258. nginx has the larger community by that measure.
Are nginx and FreeDomain free?
Both are open source. nginx is licensed under BSD-2-Clause and FreeDomain under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between nginx and FreeDomain?
nginx is written in C and FreeDomain in various languages. 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 FreeDomain?
Choose nginx if you want the larger community (31,832 stars) or its BSD-2-Clause licence terms. Choose FreeDomain if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.