head to head · open source
SafeLine vs higress
SafeLine has 23,154 GitHub stars, 1,592 forks, 69 open issues and last shipped 12 days ago. higress has 9,695 stars, 1,379 forks, 1,114 open issues and last shipped yesterday. SafeLine leads on adoption by 139% (23,154 vs 9,695 stars). SafeLine is written in Go under GPL-3.0; higress is written in Go under Apache-2.0. SafeLine has attracted 7% as many forks as stars, higress 14%. higress was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (api-gateway), 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
| SafeLine | higress | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 23K | ★ 9.7K |
| License | GPL-3.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | Go |
| Last push | 2026-10-22 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.6K | ⑂ 1.4K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick SafeLine if
- You weight community size — 23K stars and counting
- You want the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick higress if
- You want the higress 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 higress fits your workflow better
About SafeLine
SafeLine Make your web apps secure 🏠 Website 📖 Docs 🔍 Live Demo 🙋♂️ Discord 中文版 🏆 Achievements 👋 INTRODUCTION SafeLine is a self hosted WAF(Web Application Firewall) to protect your web apps from attacks and exploits. A web application firewall helps protect web apps by filtering and monitoring HTTP traffic between a web application and the Internet. It typically protects web apps from attacks such as SQL injection , XSS , code injection , os command injection , CRLF injection , ldap injection , xpath injection , RCE , XXE , SSRF , path traversal , backdoor , bruteforce , http flood , bot abused , among…
read the full SafeLine overview →
About higress
AI Gateway AI Native API Gateway Official Site Docs Blog Roadmap MCP Server QuickStart Developer Guide Wasm Plugin Hub English 中文 日本語 What is Higress? Higress is a cloud native API gateway based on Istio and Envoy, which can be extended with Wasm plugins written in Go/Rust/JS. It provides dozens of ready to use general purpose plugins and an out of the box console (try the demo here). Core Use Cases Higress's AI gateway capabilities support all mainstream model providers both domestic and international. It also supports hosting MCP (Model Context Protocol) Servers through its plugin mechanism, enabling AI Agents…
read the full higress overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is SafeLine or higress more popular?
SafeLine has 23,154 GitHub stars and higress has 9,695. SafeLine has the larger community by that measure.
Are SafeLine and higress free?
Both are open source. SafeLine is licensed under GPL-3.0 and higress under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between SafeLine and higress?
SafeLine is written in Go and higress 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, SafeLine or higress?
Choose SafeLine if you want the larger community (23,154 stars) or its GPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose higress if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.