Angie vs FrankenPHP
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted reverse proxy & gateways options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.
| Feature | Angie | FrankenPHP |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Under-an-hour setup | Under-an-hour setup |
| Health score | 87 · Excellent | 93 · Excellent |
| Category | Reverse Proxy & Gateways | Reverse Proxy & Gateways |
| License | BSD-2-Clause | MIT |
| Language | C | Go |
| Setup difficulty | Medium | Medium |
| Min. RAM | 128 MB | 256 MB |
| Deployment | docker, bare-metal | docker, binary |
| GitHub stars | ★ 2,575 | ★ 11,358 |
| First released | 2022 | 2022 |
| Replaces | nginx | nginx, Apache HTTP Server |
What are Angie and FrankenPHP?
Angie
Angie is a web server and reverse proxy created by former nginx developers, fully compatible with nginx configuration. It adds features such as dynamic upstream configuration and a built-in monitoring console.
- nginx-compatible config
- Dynamic upstream API
- Built-in status console
- Active maintenance
FrankenPHP
FrankenPHP is a modern application server for PHP, built on top of the Caddy web server, that adds features like worker mode, real-time capabilities, and automatic HTTPS. It serves PHP apps directly.
- PHP app server on Caddy
- Worker mode performance
- Automatic HTTPS
- Built-in real-time support
Angie vs FrankenPHP: key differences
Angie is written in C, while FrankenPHP is built with Go. Licensing differs — BSD-2-Clause for Angie versus MIT for FrankenPHP. Angie is the lighter option, starting around 128 MB of RAM against 256 MB for FrankenPHP. FrankenPHP has the considerably larger community, at 11,358 GitHub stars versus 2,575.
Why pick each one
Choose Angie if…
- Released under the BSD-2-Clause license
- First-class Docker support for quick deployment
- Active community (2.6k GitHub stars)
- Written in C
Choose FrankenPHP if…
- Released under the MIT license
- First-class Docker support for quick deployment
- Mature project with 11.4k GitHub stars
- Written in Go
Frequently asked questions
Is Angie or FrankenPHP better?
Neither is universally better. FrankenPHP has the larger community; both share a medium setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.
Are Angie and FrankenPHP free and open-source?
Yes. Angie is licensed under BSD-2-Clause and FrankenPHP under MIT. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Angie and FrankenPHP with Docker?
Angie: yes. FrankenPHP: yes.
Which is lighter on resources, Angie or FrankenPHP?
Angie has the smaller minimum footprint at 128 MB of RAM, compared to about 256 MB for FrankenPHP. Real-world usage depends on library size, user count, and enabled features.