freenginx vs Skipper
freenginx
freenginx.org
Skipper
opensource.zalando.comSide by side
| Figure | freenginx | Skipper |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | — |
| Free plan | Yes | — |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Windows | Yes | Yes |
| macOS | Yes | Yes |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hosted | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 1 | 0 |
| Spec score · Reverse Proxy Software | 8.6 (#6) | 7.3 (#20) |
| License | The source code and documentation are distributed under a 2-clause BSD-like license. | The project publishes a LICENSE file in its GitHub repository. |
| Purpose | 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. | Skipper is an HTTP router and reverse proxy for service composition, including Kubernetes Ingress use cases. |
| Support | Support is offered through English and Russian mailing lists; posting requires subscribing the email address used to post. | The project directs user and developer questions to its public Google Group and Slack channel, and also suggests creating an issue. |
Plans
In their own words
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.
Skipper
Skipper has no write-up on Specifiction yet; its figures are above.