head to head · open source
nginx vs SoftEtherVPN
nginx has 32,033 GitHub stars, 8,410 forks, 468 open issues and last shipped 5 days ago. SoftEtherVPN has 13,698 stars, 2,800 forks, 296 open issues and last shipped 4 days ago. nginx leads on adoption by 134% (32,033 vs 13,698 stars). nginx is written in C under BSD-2-Clause; SoftEtherVPN is written in C under Apache-2.0. nginx has attracted 26% as many forks as stars, SoftEtherVPN 20%. SoftEtherVPN 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.
← all 20902 open source comparisons
Side by side
| nginx | SoftEtherVPN | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 32K | ★ 14K |
| License | BSD-2-Clause | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | C | C |
| Last push | 2026-10-29 | 2026-10-30 |
| Forks | ⑂ 8.4K | ⑂ 2.8K |
| 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 SoftEtherVPN if
- You want the SoftEtherVPN feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches C
- You evaluated both and SoftEtherVPN 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 SoftEtherVPN
SoftEther VPN SoftEther VPN BOARD MEMBERS OF THIS REPOSITORY SOFTETHER VPN ADVANTAGES Installation For FreeBSD For Windows From binary installers (stable channel) Build from Source code Antivirus False Positive Detection About HTML5 based Modern Admin Console and JSON RPC API Suite Built in SoftEther VPN Server HTML5 Ajax based Web Administration Console Built in SoftEther Server VPN JSON RPC API Suite TO CIRCUMVENT YOUR GOVERNMENT'S FIREWALL RESTRICTION SOURCE CODE CONTRIBUTION DEAR SECURITY EXPERTS SoftEther VPN (Developer Edition Master Repository) An Open Source Cross platform Multi protocol VPN Program This…
read the full SoftEtherVPN overview →
More in Infrastructure & Operations
Related comparisons
More Networking & Connectivity projects
Compare either of these against the rest of the Networking & Connectivity field.
Frequently asked questions
Is nginx or SoftEtherVPN more popular?
nginx has 32,033 GitHub stars and SoftEtherVPN has 13,698. nginx has the larger community by that measure.
Are nginx and SoftEtherVPN free?
Both are open source. nginx is licensed under BSD-2-Clause and SoftEtherVPN under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between nginx and SoftEtherVPN?
nginx is written in C and SoftEtherVPN in C. 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 SoftEtherVPN?
Choose nginx if you want the larger community (32,033 stars) or its BSD-2-Clause licence terms. Choose SoftEtherVPN if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.