caddy-l4 vs relayd
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted reverse proxy & gateways options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.
| Feature | caddy-l4 | relayd |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Read-the-docs project | Read-the-docs project |
| Health score | 85 · Excellent | 86 · Excellent |
| Category | Reverse Proxy & Gateways | Reverse Proxy & Gateways |
| License | Apache-2.0 | ISC |
| Language | Go | C |
| Setup difficulty | Medium | Hard |
| Min. RAM | 64 MB | 32 MB |
| Deployment | binary, source | bare-metal, source |
| GitHub stars | ★ 1,780 | ★ 3,884 |
| First released | 2020 | 2006 |
| Replaces | HAProxy | HAProxy, F5 BIG-IP |
What are caddy-l4 and relayd?
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
relayd
relayd is OpenBSD's daemon for relaying and load-balancing TCP connections, supporting application-layer filtering and SSL/TLS acceleration. It integrates closely with the pf packet filter.
- TCP load balancing
- Application-layer filtering
- TLS acceleration
- pf integration
caddy-l4 vs relayd: key differences
Caddy-l4 is written in Go, while relayd is built with C. Licensing differs — Apache-2.0 for caddy-l4 versus ISC for relayd. Relayd is the lighter option, starting around 32 MB of RAM against 64 MB for caddy-l4. Relayd is the more established project (first released 2006), while caddy-l4 arrived in 2020. Relayd has the considerably larger community, at 3,884 GitHub stars versus 1,780.
Why pick each one
Choose caddy-l4 if…
- Extends Caddy nicely
- Port multiplexing
Watch out for
- Marked experimental
- Requires Caddy knowledge
Choose relayd if…
- Tightly integrated with OpenBSD
- Very lightweight
Watch out for
- OpenBSD focused
- Terse configuration
Frequently asked questions
Is caddy-l4 or relayd better?
Neither is universally better. relayd has the larger community, while caddy-l4 is simpler to set up (medium difficulty). Choose based on the comparison table above and your own setup.
Are caddy-l4 and relayd free and open-source?
Yes. caddy-l4 is licensed under Apache-2.0 and relayd under ISC. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run caddy-l4 and relayd with Docker?
caddy-l4: check the project docs for container support. relayd: check the project docs for container support.
Which is lighter on resources, caddy-l4 or relayd?
relayd has the smaller minimum footprint at 32 MB of RAM, compared to about 64 MB for caddy-l4. Real-world usage depends on library size, user count, and enabled features.