AdGuard Home vs Nginx Proxy Manager

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 HomeNginx Proxy Manager
CategoryReverse Proxy & GatewaysReverse Proxy & Gateways
LicenseGPL-3.0MIT
LanguageTypeScriptTypeScript
Setup difficultyEasyEasy
Min. RAM128 MB256 MB
Deploymentdocker, binarydocker
GitHub stars★ 35,977★ 33,804
First released20182019
ReplacesPi-hole, NextDNSCloudflare

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 Nginx Proxy Manager if…

  • Beginner-friendly
  • Free certificates built in
Nginx Proxy Manager details

Frequently asked questions

Is AdGuard Home or Nginx Proxy Manager better?

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

Are AdGuard Home and Nginx Proxy Manager free and open-source?

Yes. AdGuard Home is licensed under GPL-3.0 and Nginx Proxy Manager under MIT. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.

Can I run AdGuard Home and Nginx Proxy Manager with Docker?

AdGuard Home: yes. Nginx Proxy Manager: yes.

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