head to head · open source
nginx vs oxidns
nginx has 31,853 GitHub stars, 8,315 forks, 468 open issues and last shipped 12 days ago. oxidns has 554 stars, 45 forks, 15 open issues and last shipped today. nginx leads on adoption by 5,650% (31,853 vs 554 stars). nginx is written in C under BSD-2-Clause; oxidns is written in Rust under GPL-3.0. nginx has attracted 26% as many forks as stars, oxidns 8%. oxidns 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 | oxidns | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 32K | ★ 554 |
| License | BSD-2-Clause | GPL-3.0 |
| Written in | C | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-09-30 | 2026-10-12 |
| Forks | ⑂ 8.3K | ⑂ 45 |
| 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 oxidns if
- You want the oxidns feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You evaluated both and oxidns 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 oxidns
OxiDNS is a programmable, policy orchestration DNS engine written in Rust, aimed at operators of soft routers, OpenWrt boxes, homelabs and advanced self hosted networks who need explainable, configurable query routing.
read the full oxidns overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is nginx or oxidns more popular?
nginx has 31,853 GitHub stars and oxidns has 554. nginx has the larger community by that measure.
Are nginx and oxidns free?
Both are open source. nginx is licensed under BSD-2-Clause and oxidns under GPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between nginx and oxidns?
nginx is written in C and oxidns in Rust. 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 oxidns?
Choose nginx if you want the larger community (31,853 stars) or its BSD-2-Clause licence terms. Choose oxidns if its feature set, stack or GPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.