head to head · open source
nginx vs node
nginx has 31,721 GitHub stars, 8,311 forks, 468 open issues and last shipped 9 days ago. node has 1,354 stars, 355 forks, 80 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. nginx leads on adoption by 2,243% (31,721 vs 1,354 stars). nginx is written in C under BSD-2-Clause; node is written in Go under GPL-3.0. nginx has attracted 26% as many forks as stars, node 26%. node 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 | node | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 32K | ★ 1.4K |
| License | BSD-2-Clause | GPL-3.0 |
| Written in | C | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-16 | 2026-09-23 |
| Forks | ⑂ 8.3K | ⑂ 355 |
| 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 node if
- You want the node 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 node 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 node
Mysterium Node is the official Go implementation of the Mysterium Network distributed VPN (dVPN) protocol, a cross platform package for operators who want to run a node on that network and for developers who want to build clients against it.
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Frequently asked questions
Is nginx or node more popular?
nginx has 31,721 GitHub stars and node has 1,354. nginx has the larger community by that measure.
Are nginx and node free?
Both are open source. nginx is licensed under BSD-2-Clause and node under GPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between nginx and node?
nginx is written in C and node 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 node?
Choose nginx if you want the larger community (31,721 stars) or its BSD-2-Clause licence terms. Choose node if its feature set, stack or GPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.