head to head · open source
traefik vs nps
traefik has 65,294 GitHub stars, 6,266 forks, 939 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. nps has 1,089 stars, 156 forks, 15 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. traefik leads on adoption by 5,896% (65,294 vs 1,089 stars). traefik is written in Go under MIT; nps is written in Go under GPL-3.0. traefik has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, nps 14%. traefik was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (go), 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 | nps | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 65K | ★ 1.1K |
| License | MIT | GPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Go | Go |
| Last push | 2026-10-20 | 2026-10-20 |
| Forks | ⑂ 6.3K | ⑂ 156 |
| 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 nps if
- You want the nps feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and nps 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 nps
NPS Enhanced An enhanced and actively maintained NAT traversal and reverse proxy system with Web UI. ⭐️ Give us a star on GitHub if you like it! 中文文档 Introduction NPS is a lightweight and efficient NAT traversal and reverse proxy system for exposing services behind NAT or firewalls. It supports multiple protocols such as TCP, UDP, HTTP, HTTPS, and SOCKS5, and provides a Web management interface for convenient deployment and monitoring. Based on the original NPS project, NPS Enhanced has evolved into an actively maintained and extensively improved edition with continuous refactoring, better stability, and many…
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Frequently asked questions
Is traefik or nps more popular?
traefik has 65,294 GitHub stars and nps has 1,089. traefik has the larger community by that measure.
Are traefik and nps free?
Both are open source. traefik is licensed under MIT and nps under GPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between traefik and nps?
traefik is written in Go and nps 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 nps?
Choose traefik if you want the larger community (65,294 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose nps if its feature set, stack or GPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.