head to head · open source
traefik vs pdns
traefik has 65,483 GitHub stars, 6,309 forks, 939 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. pdns has 4,514 stars, 1,036 forks, 932 open issues and last shipped 3 days ago. traefik leads on adoption by 1,351% (65,483 vs 4,514 stars). traefik is written in Go under MIT; pdns is written in C++ under GPL-2.0. traefik has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, pdns 23%. 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 | pdns | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 65K | ★ 4.5K |
| License | MIT | GPL-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | C++ |
| Last push | 2026-11-06 | 2026-11-05 |
| Forks | ⑂ 6.3K | ⑂ 1.0K |
| 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 pdns if
- You want the pdns feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches C++
- You evaluated both and pdns 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 pdns
PowerDNS is copyright © by PowerDNS.COM BV and lots of contributors, using the GNU GPLv2 license (see NOTICE for the exact license and exception used). All documentation can be found on This file may lag behind at times. For most recent updates, always check Another good place to look for information is: To file bugs, head towards: But please check if the issue is already reported there first. DOCKER This README is mirrored from GitHub to dockerhub. For information about our Docker images, please refer to SOURCE CODE / GIT Source code is available on GitHub: This repository contains the sources for the PowerDNS…
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Frequently asked questions
Is traefik or pdns more popular?
traefik has 65,483 GitHub stars and pdns has 4,514. traefik has the larger community by that measure.
Are traefik and pdns free?
Both are open source. traefik is licensed under MIT and pdns under GPL-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between traefik and pdns?
traefik is written in Go and pdns in C++. 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 pdns?
Choose traefik if you want the larger community (65,483 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose pdns if its feature set, stack or GPL-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.