Anubis vs Pangolin
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?
Anubis
Proof-of-work proxy to block AI scraper bots
VS
Pangolin
Self-hosted tunneled reverse proxy with identity access
| Feature | Anubis | Pangolin |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Reverse Proxy & Gateways | Reverse Proxy & Gateways |
| License | MIT | AGPL-3.0 |
| Language | Go | TypeScript |
| Setup difficulty | Easy | Medium |
| Min. RAM | 64 MB | 512 MB |
| Deployment | docker, binary | docker |
| GitHub stars | ★ 21,230 | ★ 22,062 |
| First released | 2025 | 2024 |
| Replaces | Cloudflare Bot Management | Cloudflare Tunnel |
Why pick each one
Choose Anubis if…
- Released under the MIT license
- Easy to set up — beginner-friendly
- First-class Docker support for quick deployment
- Mature project with 21.2k GitHub stars
Choose Pangolin if…
- Released under the AGPL-3.0 license
- First-class Docker support for quick deployment
- Mature project with 22.1k GitHub stars
- Written in TypeScript
Frequently asked questions
Is Anubis or Pangolin better?
Neither is universally better. Pangolin has the larger community, while Anubis is simpler to set up (easy difficulty). Choose based on the comparison table above and your own setup.
Are Anubis and Pangolin free and open-source?
Yes. Anubis is licensed under MIT and Pangolin under AGPL-3.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Anubis and Pangolin with Docker?
Anubis: yes. Pangolin: yes.