freenginx vs frp

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.

frp is a free, self-hosted reverse proxy for making intranet services reachable from the public network through nodes with public IP addresses. It supports TCP, UDP, HTTP, and HTTPS proxying, while client-server communication also supports QUIC, KCP, WebSocket, and other protocols. Its XTCP mode uses P2P hole punching so successful connections send traffic directly rather than through frps, but success depends on the network’s NAT type and cannot be assured. Client and server authentication support tokens and OIDC, with token authentication as the default; encryption is among the project’s listed capabilities. Proxy groups can balance load, and TCP or HTTP health checks can remove failed services from frps. Monitoring can run in memory or through Prometheus, which requires the Dashboard to be enabled. frps has a browser Dashboard for status and proxy statistics, while frpc includes an Admin UI for proxy status and configuration. Configuration supports TOML, YAML, and JSON; INI is still supported but no longer recommended. Written in Go, frp provides platform-specific binaries for cross-platform deployment without additional dependencies. The project is under development and says version 2 will not be compatible with version 1.