head to head · open source
nginx vs gravity
nginx has 31,780 GitHub stars, 8,309 forks, 468 open issues and last shipped 3 days ago. gravity has 930 stars, 31 forks, 59 open issues and last shipped yesterday. nginx leads on adoption by 3,317% (31,780 vs 930 stars). nginx is written in C under BSD-2-Clause; gravity is written in Go under GPL-3.0. nginx has attracted 26% as many forks as stars, gravity 3%. gravity 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 | gravity | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 32K | ★ 930 |
| License | BSD-2-Clause | GPL-3.0 |
| Written in | C | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-30 | 2026-10-02 |
| 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 gravity if
- You want the gravity feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and gravity 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 gravity
Gravity is a fully replicated DNS, DHCP and TFTP server with ad blocking, written in Go and backed by etcd, for self hosters and network operators who want name and address services that stay consistent across a cluster.
read the full gravity overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is nginx or gravity more popular?
nginx has 31,780 GitHub stars and gravity has 930. nginx has the larger community by that measure.
Are nginx and gravity free?
Both are open source. nginx is licensed under BSD-2-Clause and gravity under GPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between nginx and gravity?
nginx is written in C and gravity 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 gravity?
Choose nginx if you want the larger community (31,780 stars) or its BSD-2-Clause licence terms. Choose gravity if its feature set, stack or GPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.