head to head · open source
traefik vs dns.toys
traefik has 64,976 GitHub stars, 6,206 forks, 939 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. dns.toys has 2,828 stars, 186 forks, 10 open issues and last shipped 7 months ago. traefik leads on adoption by 2,198% (64,976 vs 2,828 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 | ★ 65K | ★ 2.8K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | Go | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-25 | 2026-02-26 |
| Forks | ⑂ 6.2K | ⑂ 186 |
| 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 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 "The Cloud Native Application Proxy": an MIT licensed, Go based HTTP reverse proxy and load balancer that watches your orchestrator or service registry and generates its own routes, aimed at teams running microservices on Docker, Swarm, Kubernetes, Consul, Etcd, Rancher v2, or Amazon ECS.
read the full traefik overview →
About dns.toys
dns.toys is an MIT licensed DNS server, written in Go, that takes creative liberties with the DNS protocol to deliver everyday utilities — weather, world time, unit and currency conversion, IP lookup and more — to anyone with a terminal and a dig command.
read the full dns.toys overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is traefik or dns.toys more popular?
traefik has 64,976 GitHub stars and dns.toys has 2,828. 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 (64,976 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose dns.toys if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.