head to head · open source
nginx vs zoraxy
nginx has 32,082 GitHub stars, 8,393 forks, 468 open issues and last shipped 4 days ago. zoraxy has 5,572 stars, 333 forks, 159 open issues and last shipped 6 days ago. nginx leads on adoption by 476% (32,082 vs 5,572 stars). nginx is written in C under BSD-2-Clause; zoraxy is written in HTML under AGPL-3.0. nginx has attracted 26% as many forks as stars, zoraxy 6%. nginx was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (reverse-proxy), so they are genuine substitutes rather than adjacent tools.
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 | zoraxy | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 32K | ★ 5.6K |
| License | BSD-2-Clause | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | C | HTML |
| Last push | 2026-11-06 | 2026-11-04 |
| Forks | ⑂ 8.4K | ⑂ 333 |
| 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 zoraxy if
- You want the zoraxy feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches HTML
- You evaluated both and zoraxy 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 zoraxy
Zoraxy A general purpose HTTP reverse proxy and forwarding tool. Now written in Go! Features Simple to use interface with detail in system instructions Reverse Proxy (HTTP/2) Virtual Directory WebSocket Proxy (automatic, no set up needed) Basic Auth Alias Hostnames Custom Headers Load Balancing Redirection Rules TLS / SSL setup and deploy ACME features like auto renew to serve your sites in http s SNI support (and SAN certs) DNS Challenge for Let's Encrypt and these DNS providers Blacklist / Whitelist by country or IP address (single IP, CIDR or wildcard for beginners) Stream Proxy (TCP & UDP) Integrated Up time…
read the full zoraxy overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is nginx or zoraxy more popular?
nginx has 32,082 GitHub stars and zoraxy has 5,572. nginx has the larger community by that measure.
Are nginx and zoraxy free?
Both are open source. nginx is licensed under BSD-2-Clause and zoraxy under AGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between nginx and zoraxy?
nginx is written in C and zoraxy in HTML. 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 zoraxy?
Choose nginx if you want the larger community (32,082 stars) or its BSD-2-Clause licence terms. Choose zoraxy if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.