head to head · open source
nginx vs SoftEtherVPN
nginx has 31,683 GitHub stars, 8,304 forks, 468 open issues and last shipped 3 days ago. SoftEtherVPN has 13,562 stars, 2,781 forks, 296 open issues and last shipped 6 days ago. nginx leads on adoption by 134% (31,683 vs 13,562 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 21%. 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 | SoftEtherVPN | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 32K | ★ 14K |
| License | BSD-2-Clause | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | C | C |
| Last push | 2026-09-16 | 2026-09-13 |
| Forks | ⑂ 8.3K | ⑂ 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 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 SoftEtherVPN
SoftEther VPN is an open source, cross platform, multi protocol VPN server and client, written in C and licensed under Apache 2.0, intended for administrators and self hosters who need one program to serve many VPN protocols instead of running several separate daemons.
read the full SoftEtherVPN overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is nginx or SoftEtherVPN more popular?
nginx has 31,683 GitHub stars and SoftEtherVPN has 13,562. 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 (31,683 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.