head to head · open source
traefik vs dns.toys
traefik has 65,531 GitHub stars, 6,313 forks, 939 open issues and last shipped yesterday. dns.toys has 2,833 stars, 190 forks, 10 open issues and last shipped 9 months ago. traefik leads on adoption by 2,213% (65,531 vs 2,833 stars). traefik is written in Go under MIT; dns.toys is written in Go under MIT. traefik has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, dns.toys 7%. traefik was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee.
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 | dns.toys | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 66K | ★ 2.8K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | Go | Go |
| Last push | 2026-11-11 | 2026-02-26 |
| Forks | ⑂ 6.3K | ⑂ 190 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick traefik if
- You weight community size — 66K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick dns.toys if
- You want the dns.toys feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and dns.toys 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 dns.toys
dns.toys is a DNS server that takes creative liberties with the DNS protocol to offer handy utilities and services that are easily accessible via the command line. For docs, visit www.dns.toys Sample commands Running locally Docker Or using docker compose: From source Clone the repo Copy config.sample.toml to config.toml and edit the config Make sure you have a copy of the cities15000.txt file at the root of this directory (instructions are in the config.sample.toml file) Make sure to download the wordnet from Wordnet website.(more instructions are in the config.sample.toml file) Extract the tarball and rename…
read the full dns.toys overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is traefik or dns.toys more popular?
traefik has 65,531 GitHub stars and dns.toys has 2,833. traefik has the larger community by that measure.
Are traefik and dns.toys free?
Both are open source. traefik is licensed under MIT and dns.toys under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between traefik and dns.toys?
traefik is written in Go and dns.toys 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 dns.toys?
Choose traefik if you want the larger community (65,531 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose dns.toys if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.