head to head · open source
nginx vs proxy.py
nginx has 31,772 GitHub stars, 8,309 forks, 468 open issues and last shipped yesterday. proxy.py has 3,551 stars, 623 forks, 89 open issues and last shipped 3 days ago. nginx leads on adoption by 795% (31,772 vs 3,551 stars). nginx is written in C under BSD-2-Clause; proxy.py is written in Python under BSD-3-Clause. nginx has attracted 26% as many forks as stars, proxy.py 18%. nginx 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 | proxy.py | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 32K | ★ 3.6K |
| License | BSD-2-Clause | BSD-3-Clause |
| Written in | C | Python |
| Last push | 2026-09-30 | 2026-09-28 |
| Forks | ⑂ 8.3K | ⑂ 623 |
| 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 proxy.py if
- You want the proxy.py feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the BSD-3-Clause license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and proxy.py 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 proxy.py
proxy.py is a lightweight, dependency free HTTP and HTTPS proxy server and pluggable networking framework written in Python, for developers and operators who want forward and reverse proxying, TLS interception or DNS over HTTPS without depending on a hosted service or third party packages.
read the full proxy.py overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is nginx or proxy.py more popular?
nginx has 31,772 GitHub stars and proxy.py has 3,551. nginx has the larger community by that measure.
Are nginx and proxy.py free?
Both are open source. nginx is licensed under BSD-2-Clause and proxy.py under BSD-3-Clause. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between nginx and proxy.py?
nginx is written in C and proxy.py 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 proxy.py?
Choose nginx if you want the larger community (31,772 stars) or its BSD-2-Clause licence terms. Choose proxy.py if its feature set, stack or BSD-3-Clause licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.