AdGuard Home vs Caddy

A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted reverse proxy & gateways options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.

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FeatureAdGuard HomeCaddy
CategoryReverse Proxy & GatewaysReverse Proxy & Gateways
LicenseGPL-3.0Apache-2.0
LanguageTypeScriptGo
Setup difficultyEasyEasy
Min. RAM128 MB64 MB
Deploymentdocker, binarydocker, binary, bare-metal
GitHub stars★ 35,977★ 74,748
First released20182015
ReplacesPi-hole, NextDNSNginx, Apache

Why pick each one

Choose AdGuard Home if…

  • Released under the GPL-3.0 license
  • Easy to set up — beginner-friendly
  • First-class Docker support for quick deployment
  • Mature project with 36k GitHub stars
AdGuard Home details

Choose Caddy if…

  • Zero-config TLS
  • Easy to learn
Caddy details

Frequently asked questions

Is AdGuard Home or Caddy better?

Neither is universally better. Caddy has the larger community; both share a easy setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.

Are AdGuard Home and Caddy free and open-source?

Yes. AdGuard Home is licensed under GPL-3.0 and Caddy under Apache-2.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.

Can I run AdGuard Home and Caddy with Docker?

AdGuard Home: yes. Caddy: yes.

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