SHSelfHostIndex

caddy-l4 vs gobetween

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?
CA caddy-l4 Layer 4 proxy module for the Caddy server VS GO gobetween Modern L4 load balancer and reverse proxy
Featurecaddy-l4gobetween
Deploy effortRead-the-docs projectUnder-an-hour setup
Health score85 · Excellent37 · At risk
CategoryReverse Proxy & GatewaysReverse Proxy & Gateways
LicenseApache-2.0MIT
LanguageGoGo
Setup difficultyMediumEasy
Min. RAM64 MB64 MB
Deploymentbinary, sourcedocker, binary
GitHub stars★ 1,780★ 1,988
First released20202016
ReplacesHAProxyHAProxy, NGINX Plus

What are caddy-l4 and gobetween?

caddy-l4

Caddy-L4 is an experimental application-layer-aware Layer 4 proxy app for the Caddy server, enabling TCP and UDP routing alongside Caddy's HTTP features. It allows protocol multiplexing on a single port.

  • TCP and UDP proxying
  • Protocol multiplexing
  • Caddy integration
  • Connection matchers

Read the full caddy-l4 guide →

gobetween

gobetween is a free, lightweight L4 load balancer and reverse proxy supporting TCP and UDP with multiple discovery and health-check backends. It is designed for simple, fast traffic distribution.

  • TCP and UDP balancing
  • Service discovery
  • Health checks
  • REST API

Read the full gobetween guide →

caddy-l4 vs gobetween: key differences

Both projects are written in Go. Licensing differs — Apache-2.0 for caddy-l4 versus MIT for gobetween. Gobetween is the more established project (first released 2016), while caddy-l4 arrived in 2020. Gobetween lists first-class Docker deployment; caddy-l4 does not.

Why pick each one

Choose caddy-l4 if…

  • Extends Caddy nicely
  • Port multiplexing

Watch out for

  • Marked experimental
  • Requires Caddy knowledge
caddy-l4 details

Choose gobetween if…

  • Single small binary
  • Easy to configure

Watch out for

  • L4 only
  • Smaller community
gobetween details

Frequently asked questions

Is caddy-l4 or gobetween better?

gobetween is the stronger all-round pick: it has both the larger community and the simpler easy setup. Consider caddy-l4 if its specific feature set fits your needs better.

Are caddy-l4 and gobetween free and open-source?

Yes. caddy-l4 is licensed under Apache-2.0 and gobetween under MIT. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.

Can I run caddy-l4 and gobetween with Docker?

caddy-l4: check the project docs for container support. gobetween: yes.

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