head to head · open source
traefik vs openvpn-install
traefik has 64,895 GitHub stars, 6,201 forks, 939 open issues and last shipped yesterday. openvpn-install has 16,133 stars, 3,336 forks, 24 open issues and last shipped 3 days ago. traefik leads on adoption by 302% (64,895 vs 16,133 stars). traefik is written in Go under MIT; openvpn-install is written in Shell under MIT. traefik has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, openvpn-install 21%. 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 | openvpn-install | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 65K | ★ 16K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | Go | Shell |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-09-16 |
| Forks | ⑂ 6.2K | ⑂ 3.3K |
| 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 openvpn-install if
- You want the openvpn-install feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Shell
- You evaluated both and openvpn-install 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 openvpn-install
openvpn install is an MIT licensed Bash script that installs and manages a self hosted OpenVPN server on Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, openSUSE, CentOS, Amazon Linux, Arch Linux, Oracle Linux, Rocky Linux and AlmaLinux, aimed at anyone who runs their own VPS, dedicated server or home machine and wants to generate VPN client configuration files per device.
read the full openvpn-install overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is traefik or openvpn-install more popular?
traefik has 64,895 GitHub stars and openvpn-install has 16,133. traefik has the larger community by that measure.
Are traefik and openvpn-install free?
Both are open source. traefik is licensed under MIT and openvpn-install under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between traefik and openvpn-install?
traefik is written in Go and openvpn-install in Shell. 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 openvpn-install?
Choose traefik if you want the larger community (64,895 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose openvpn-install if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.