head to head · open source
traefik vs acme-dns
traefik has 65,497 GitHub stars, 6,310 forks, 939 open issues and last shipped 4 days ago. acme-dns has 2,874 stars, 307 forks, 192 open issues and last shipped 5 months ago. traefik leads on adoption by 2,179% (65,497 vs 2,874 stars). traefik is written in Go under MIT; acme-dns is written in Go under MIT. traefik has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, acme-dns 11%. traefik was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (letsencrypt), 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
| traefik | acme-dns | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 65K | ★ 2.9K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | Go | Go |
| Last push | 2026-11-06 | 2026-06-08 |
| Forks | ⑂ 6.3K | ⑂ 307 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick traefik if
- You weight community size — 65K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick acme-dns if
- You want the acme-dns feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and acme-dns fits your workflow better
About traefik
Traefik (pronounced traffic ) is a modern HTTP reverse proxy and load balancer that makes deploying microservices easy. Traefik integrates with your existing infrastructure components (Docker, Swarm mode, Kubernetes, Consul, Etcd, Rancher v2, Amazon ECS, ...) and configures itself automatically and dynamically. Pointing Traefik at your orchestrator should be the only configuration step you need. . Overview . Features . Supported backends . Quickstart . Web UI . Documentation . . Support . Release cycle . Contributing . Maintainers . Credits . :warning: When migrating to a new major version of Traefik, please…
read the full traefik overview →
About acme-dns
acme dns A simplified DNS server with a RESTful HTTP API to provide a simple way to automate ACME DNS challenges. Why? Many DNS servers do not provide an API to enable automation for the ACME DNS challenges. Those which do, give the keys way too much power. Leaving the keys laying around your random boxes is too often a requirement to have a meaningful process automation. Acme dns provides a simple API exclusively for TXT record updates and should be used with ACME magic "\ acme challenge" subdomain CNAME records. This way, in the unfortunate exposure of API keys, the effects are limited to the subdomain TXT…
read the full acme-dns overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is traefik or acme-dns more popular?
traefik has 65,497 GitHub stars and acme-dns has 2,874. traefik has the larger community by that measure.
Are traefik and acme-dns free?
Both are open source. traefik is licensed under MIT and acme-dns under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between traefik and acme-dns?
traefik is written in Go and acme-dns 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, traefik or acme-dns?
Choose traefik if you want the larger community (65,497 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose acme-dns if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.