HeliosProxy vs ProxySQL
HeliosProxy
heliosdb.com
ProxySQL
proxysql.comSide by side
| Figure | HeliosProxy | ProxySQL |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | Free |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| API | Yes | — |
| Self-hosted | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 1 | 3 |
| Spec score · Database Proxy Software | 7.8 (#8) | 7.3 (#23) |
| Deployment | The maker documents Docker, Kubernetes, and standalone deployment options. | The installation guide provides Linux distribution packages and describes Docker and Kubernetes deployment options. |
| Security | The proxy supports JWT, OAuth 2.0, LDAP, and API-key authentication, with identity claim-to-database-role mapping. | The features page describes a database firewall intended to protect databases from SQL injection and runaway queries. |
| Support | The company lists a support contact at [email protected] and links to community support on Discord. | Commercial offerings include SLA-backed support, priority response, and dedicated account management; community users can use GitHub Discussions, Google Groups, and GitHub Issues. |
Plans
In their own words
HeliosProxy
HeliosProxy is a self-hosted, programmable PostgreSQL data-plane for routing connections, handling failover, replaying traffic, and supporting database upgrades. It provides session, transaction, and statement pooling, with multiplexing up to 100:1. Routing can account for replica lag, workload type, and failing backends through circuit breaking. Cache options include local memory, Redis-backed storage, and semantic tiers, with invalidation when writes occur. Transaction Replay can move sessions to a new primary and optionally replay reads or transactions when conditions permit, although prepared statements, temporary tables, open cursors, advisory locks, and extended-protocol SET statements are not restored. A WebAssembly plugin runtime offers five hook points, Ed25519 verification, and OCI distribution. The admin console includes topology, plugin, chaos, shadow-execution, and traffic-replay panels. Authentication supports JWT, OAuth 2.0, LDAP, and API keys. HeliosProxy works with PostgreSQL 12+ and compatible databases, and deployment documentation covers Docker, Kubernetes, and standalone setups. It is open source under Apache 2.0 and costs nothing.
ProxySQL
ProxySQL is a self-hosted Linux database proxy for MySQL, PostgreSQL and related systems. It scales infrastructure without changes to the application stack or database engine, multiplexing more than 100,000 client connections through a few hundred backend connections. Protocol-aware, regex-based routing can send queries to primary servers, replicas or shards, and can route by user, schema or table. The proxy can cache results without application changes, monitor backend health and reroute traffic during failures. Query mirroring duplicates live traffic for analysis and performance testing, while percentage-based balancing supports gradual shifts. A database firewall is intended to protect against SQL injection and runaway queries. Deployment options include Linux packages, Docker and Kubernetes. ProxySQL is GPLv3-licensed open source, released in 2013. The Community plan is free and includes core features, supported platforms and community channels.