SHSelfHostIndex

AdGuard Home vs NGINX Unit

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?
AD AdGuard Home Network-wide DNS ad and tracker blocker VS NG NGINX Unit Dynamic application server and reverse proxy
FeatureAdGuard HomeNGINX Unit
CategoryReverse Proxy & GatewaysReverse Proxy & Gateways
LicenseGPL-3.0Apache-2.0
LanguageTypeScriptC
Setup difficultyEasyMedium
Min. RAM128 MB256 MB
Deploymentdocker, binarydocker, binary
GitHub stars★ 35,977★ 5,551
First released20182017
ReplacesPi-hole, NextDNSPassenger, uWSGI

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 Unit if…

  • Released under the Apache-2.0 license
  • First-class Docker support for quick deployment
  • Mature project with 5.6k GitHub stars
  • Written in C
NGINX Unit details

Frequently asked questions

Is AdGuard Home or NGINX Unit better?

AdGuard Home is the stronger all-round pick: it has both the larger community and the simpler easy setup. Consider NGINX Unit if its specific feature set fits your needs better.

Are AdGuard Home and NGINX Unit free and open-source?

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

Can I run AdGuard Home and NGINX Unit with Docker?

AdGuard Home: yes. NGINX Unit: yes.

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