head to head · open source
nginx-proxy vs pomerium
nginx-proxy has 19,922 GitHub stars, 3,041 forks, 327 open issues and last shipped 16 days ago. pomerium has 5,027 stars, 359 forks, 159 open issues and last shipped yesterday. nginx-proxy leads on adoption by 296% (19,922 vs 5,027 stars). nginx-proxy is written in Python under MIT; pomerium is written in Go under Apache-2.0. nginx-proxy has attracted 15% as many forks as stars, pomerium 7%. pomerium 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-proxy | pomerium | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 20K | ★ 5.0K |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Python | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-21 | 2026-10-06 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.0K | ⑂ 359 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick nginx-proxy if
- You weight community size — 20K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick pomerium if
- You want the pomerium feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and pomerium fits your workflow better
About nginx-proxy
nginx proxy is an automated Nginx reverse proxy for Docker that watches containers start and stop and rewrites its own proxy configuration in response, and it is for anyone running containerised services who needs hostname based routing without hand editing nginx configuration files.
read the full nginx-proxy overview →
About pomerium
Pomerium is an identity and context aware access proxy, written in Go and released under the Apache 2.0 licence, that builds secure, clientless connections to internal web applications and other services without a corporate VPN.
read the full pomerium overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is nginx-proxy or pomerium more popular?
nginx-proxy has 19,922 GitHub stars and pomerium has 5,027. nginx-proxy has the larger community by that measure.
Are nginx-proxy and pomerium free?
Both are open source. nginx-proxy is licensed under MIT and pomerium under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between nginx-proxy and pomerium?
nginx-proxy is written in Python and pomerium in Go. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, nginx-proxy or pomerium?
Choose nginx-proxy if you want the larger community (19,922 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose pomerium if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.