head to head · open source
traefik vs awl
traefik has 65,497 GitHub stars, 6,310 forks, 939 open issues and last shipped 4 days ago. awl has 761 stars, 53 forks, 35 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. traefik leads on adoption by 8,507% (65,497 vs 761 stars). traefik is written in Go under MIT; awl is written in Go under MPL-2.0. traefik has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, awl 7%. awl was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (golang), 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 | awl | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 65K | ★ 761 |
| License | MIT | MPL-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | Go |
| Last push | 2026-11-06 | 2026-11-08 |
| Forks | ⑂ 6.3K | ⑂ 53 |
| 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 awl if
- You want the awl feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MPL-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and awl 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 awl
Table of contents About Why Anywherelan Features Screenshots How it works Security Reproducible builds Installation The web UI Android Windows ( awl tray ) macOS Linux desktop ( awl tray ) Linux server ( awl ) Connecting devices Using devices as SOCKS5 proxy VPN gateway (full tunnel exit node) Configuration Config file location Example config Monitoring Terminal based client Common examples Upgrading Platform notes & known limitations Contributing License About Anywherelan (awl for brevity) is a peer to peer mesh VPN for connecting your own devices to each other, at the IP level, from wherever they are. A laptop…
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Frequently asked questions
Is traefik or awl more popular?
traefik has 65,497 GitHub stars and awl has 761. traefik has the larger community by that measure.
Are traefik and awl free?
Both are open source. traefik is licensed under MIT and awl under MPL-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between traefik and awl?
traefik is written in Go and awl 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 awl?
Choose traefik if you want the larger community (65,497 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose awl if its feature set, stack or MPL-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.