head to head · open source
nginx vs meridian
nginx has 32,057 GitHub stars, 8,388 forks, 468 open issues and last shipped yesterday. meridian has 500 stars, 27 forks, 15 open issues and last shipped yesterday. nginx leads on adoption by 6,311% (32,057 vs 500 stars). nginx is written in C under BSD-2-Clause; meridian is written in Python under MIT. nginx has attracted 26% as many forks as stars, meridian 5%. meridian 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 | meridian | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 32K | ★ 500 |
| License | BSD-2-Clause | MIT |
| Written in | C | Python |
| Last push | 2026-11-05 | 2026-11-05 |
| Forks | ⑂ 8.4K | ⑂ 27 |
| 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 meridian if
- You want the meridian feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and meridian fits your workflow better
About nginx
NGINX (pronounced "engine x" or "en jin eks") is the world's most popular Web Server, high performance Load Balancer, Reverse Proxy, API Gateway and Content Cache. NGINX is free and open source software, distributed under the terms of a simplified 2 clause BSD like license. Enterprise distributions, commercial support and training are available from F5, Inc. [!IMPORTANT] The goal of this README is to provide a basic, structured introduction to NGINX for novice users. Please refer to the full NGINX documentation for detailed information on installing, building, configuring, debugging, and more. These…
read the full nginx overview →
About meridian
Meridian Deploy it right. Share it easily. One command turns a fresh VPS into a hardened self hosted VPN server, with a built in web panel and a connection page for each person. A VPN that connects can still give itself away: an open admin port, a self signed certificate, a container that skips the firewall. Meridian sets up every layer on a fresh Debian or Ubuntu VPS, tests the server with real traffic, and gives you two interfaces: a connection page for each person who connects and a web panel to manage people and servers from any browser. When an address gets blocked, add a relay, turn on domain mode, or move…
read the full meridian overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is nginx or meridian more popular?
nginx has 32,057 GitHub stars and meridian has 500. nginx has the larger community by that measure.
Are nginx and meridian free?
Both are open source. nginx is licensed under BSD-2-Clause and meridian under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between nginx and meridian?
nginx is written in C and meridian in Python. 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 meridian?
Choose nginx if you want the larger community (32,057 stars) or its BSD-2-Clause licence terms. Choose meridian if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.