Caddy vs freenginx
Caddy
caddyserver.comfreenginx
freenginx.orgSide by side
| Figure | Caddy | freenginx |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | $25/mo | Free |
| Free plan | — | Yes |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Web | Yes | — |
| Windows | Yes | Yes |
| macOS | Yes | Yes |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| Android | Yes | — |
| API | Yes | — |
| Self-hosted | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 8 | 1 |
| Spec score · Reverse Proxy Software | 8.0 (#13) | 8.6 (#6) |
| Platforms | The maker lists Linux, Windows, macOS, and Android among the operating systems Caddy supports. | The site lists tested Linux, macOS, and Windows platforms, along with FreeBSD, Solaris, AIX, and HP-UX. |
| Purpose | Caddy is an extensible server platform commonly used as a web server or proxy. | freenginx is an effort to preserve free and open development of nginx, an HTTP and reverse proxy server, mail proxy server, and generic TCP/UDP proxy server. |
| Support | Free community help is available through the forum; paid sponsorship tiers offer private support and other services depending on tier. | Support is offered through English and Russian mailing lists; posting requires subscribing the email address used to post. |
Plans
Caddy
- Indie$25 a month
- Indie Pro$50 a month
- Startup$99 a month
- Startup Pro$249 a month
- Business$999 a month
- Business+$2,999 a month
- Enterprise$5,900 a month
- Enterprise+$11,900 a month
In their own words
Caddy
Caddy is an extensible server platform used as a web server or proxy, and it is self-hosted. By default, it obtains and renews TLS certificates for sites and redirects HTTP to HTTPS. Its reverse proxy supports HTTP, HTTPS, WebSockets, gRPC, and FastCGI, along with load balancing and health checks. Configuration options include JSON through a RESTful API, the Caddyfile, and other adapters. Compile-time plugins extend its static binary. DNS challenge integrations include Cloudflare, DigitalOcean, Route 53, and other providers through libdns. Caddy can run as a command-line process, system service, container, Kubernetes workload, or embedded component. The software is free, with no paywalled features; sponsorship plans add services and support while leaving the license unchanged. Free community help is available through a forum. Caddy says its TLS defaults meet PCI DSS, NIST, and HIPAA compliance requirements, and that dependencies are verified with Go modules and release artifacts are cryptographically signed.
freenginx
freenginx is an effort to preserve free and open development of server software used for HTTP, mail, and TCP/UDP proxying. Its HTTP server can serve static files, reverse proxy with caching, balance load, and provide fault tolerance. It supports SSL/TLS SNI, HTTP/2, and HTTP/3, along with access controls based on client IP address, HTTP Basic authentication, or a subrequest result. Cached and accelerated connections are available for FastCGI, uwsgi, SCGI, and memcached servers. The mail proxy supports IMAP, POP3, and SMTP authentication methods with SSL and STARTTLS/STLS. TCP and UDP proxying includes load balancing, fault tolerance, and client-address access control. The process design uses one master and several workers running under an unprivileged user. Configuration can be reloaded and the executable upgraded without interrupting client service. Source and documentation are distributed under a 2-clause BSD-like license. The software is self-hosted and uses file-based configuration; downloads include source, Windows builds, and mainline and stable versions.