head to head · open source
traefik vs pivpn
traefik has 65,457 GitHub stars, 6,310 forks, 939 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. pivpn has 8,063 stars, 683 forks, 14 open issues and last shipped 2 months ago. traefik leads on adoption by 712% (65,457 vs 8,063 stars). traefik is written in Go under MIT; pivpn is written in Shell under MIT. traefik has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, pivpn 8%. 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 | pivpn | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 65K | ★ 8.1K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | Go | Shell |
| Last push | 2026-11-03 | 2026-08-30 |
| Forks | ⑂ 6.3K | ⑂ 683 |
| 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 pivpn if
- You want the pivpn feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Shell
- You evaluated both and pivpn 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 pivpn
[!WARNING] PiVPN is maintained on a best effort basis, please read more about it here. Previous announcement is here. PIVPN.IO DOCUMENTATION PiVPN is a set of shell scripts developed to easily turn your Raspberry Pi (TM) into a VPN server using two free, open source protocols: WireGuard OpenVPN This script's primary mission in life is to allow a user to have as cost effective as possible VPN at home without being a technical wizard, hence the design of PiVPN to work on a Raspberry Pi ($35) with a one command installer followed by easy management of the VPN with the 'pivpn' command. That being said... PiVPN…
read the full pivpn overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is traefik or pivpn more popular?
traefik has 65,457 GitHub stars and pivpn has 8,063. traefik has the larger community by that measure.
Are traefik and pivpn free?
Both are open source. traefik is licensed under MIT and pivpn under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between traefik and pivpn?
traefik is written in Go and pivpn 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 pivpn?
Choose traefik if you want the larger community (65,457 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose pivpn if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.