head to head · open source
traefik vs OpenSurge-for-Mac
traefik has 64,895 GitHub stars, 6,201 forks, 939 open issues and last shipped yesterday. OpenSurge-for-Mac has 2,367 stars, 166 forks, 9 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. traefik leads on adoption by 2,642% (64,895 vs 2,367 stars). traefik is written in Go under MIT; OpenSurge-for-Mac is written in Go under GPL-3.0. traefik has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, OpenSurge-for-Mac 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 | OpenSurge-for-Mac | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 65K | ★ 2.4K |
| License | MIT | GPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Go | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 6.2K | ⑂ 166 |
| 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 OpenSurge-for-Mac if
- You want the OpenSurge-for-Mac 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 OpenSurge-for-Mac 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 OpenSurge-for-Mac
OpenSurge for Mac is an open source, GPL 3.0 macOS gateway and control plane that turns a Mac into a Surge style whole home transparent proxy gateway with IPv4 and IPv6 support, built for home network operators and small labs that want per device routing without swapping out their main router.
read the full OpenSurge-for-Mac overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is traefik or OpenSurge-for-Mac more popular?
traefik has 64,895 GitHub stars and OpenSurge-for-Mac has 2,367. traefik has the larger community by that measure.
Are traefik and OpenSurge-for-Mac free?
Both are open source. traefik is licensed under MIT and OpenSurge-for-Mac under GPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between traefik and OpenSurge-for-Mac?
traefik is written in Go and OpenSurge-for-Mac 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 OpenSurge-for-Mac?
Choose traefik if you want the larger community (64,895 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose OpenSurge-for-Mac if its feature set, stack or GPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.