acme.sh vs River
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted reverse proxy & gateways options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.
Not the right match-up?
acme.sh
Pure shell ACME client for TLS certificates
VS
River
Configurable reverse proxy from the Pingora project
| Feature | acme.sh | River |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Reverse Proxy & Gateways | Reverse Proxy & Gateways |
| License | GPL-3.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Language | Shell | Rust |
| Setup difficulty | Easy | Medium |
| Min. RAM | 32 MB | 64 MB |
| Deployment | binary, source | binary, source |
| GitHub stars | ★ 47,426 | ★ 2,351 |
| First released | 2016 | 2024 |
| Replaces | Certbot | nginx, HAProxy |
Why pick each one
Choose acme.sh if…
- Released under the GPL-3.0 license
- Easy to set up — beginner-friendly
- Mature project with 47.4k GitHub stars
- Written in Shell
Choose River if…
- Released under the Apache-2.0 license
- Active community (2.4k GitHub stars)
- Written in Rust
- Tiny footprint — runs in 64 MB RAM
Frequently asked questions
Is acme.sh or River better?
acme.sh is the stronger all-round pick: it has both the larger community and the simpler easy setup. Consider River if its specific feature set fits your needs better.
Are acme.sh and River free and open-source?
Yes. acme.sh is licensed under GPL-3.0 and River under Apache-2.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run acme.sh and River with Docker?
acme.sh: check the project docs for container support. River: check the project docs for container support.