caddy-l4 vs Pound
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 | Pound |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Read-the-docs project | Read-the-docs project |
| Health score | 85 · Excellent | 69 · Good |
| Category | Reverse Proxy & Gateways | Reverse Proxy & Gateways |
| License | Apache-2.0 | GPL-3.0 |
| Language | Go | C |
| Setup difficulty | Medium | Easy |
| Min. RAM | 64 MB | 32 MB |
| Deployment | binary, source | bare-metal, source |
| GitHub stars | ★ 1,780 | ★ 70 |
| First released | 2020 | 2002 |
| Replaces | HAProxy | NGINX, HAProxy |
What are caddy-l4 and Pound?
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
Pound
Pound is a small reverse proxy and load balancer that terminates HTTPS and distributes requests across backend web servers. It is intended to be simple, secure, and easy to audit.
- HTTPS termination
- Backend load balancing
- Session stickiness
- Small auditable codebase
caddy-l4 vs Pound: key differences
Caddy-l4 is written in Go, while Pound is built with C. Licensing differs — Apache-2.0 for caddy-l4 versus GPL-3.0 for Pound. Pound is the lighter option, starting around 32 MB of RAM against 64 MB for caddy-l4. Pound is the more established project (first released 2002), while caddy-l4 arrived in 2020. Caddy-l4 has the considerably larger community, at 1,780 GitHub stars versus 70.
Why pick each one
Choose caddy-l4 if…
- Extends Caddy nicely
- Port multiplexing
Watch out for
- Marked experimental
- Requires Caddy knowledge
Choose Pound if…
- Tiny and simple
- Easy to secure
Watch out for
- Limited features
- Minimal community
Frequently asked questions
Is caddy-l4 or Pound better?
Neither is universally better. caddy-l4 has the larger community, while Pound is simpler to set up (easy difficulty). Choose based on the comparison table above and your own setup.
Are caddy-l4 and Pound free and open-source?
Yes. caddy-l4 is licensed under Apache-2.0 and Pound under GPL-3.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run caddy-l4 and Pound with Docker?
caddy-l4: check the project docs for container support. Pound: check the project docs for container support.
Which is lighter on resources, caddy-l4 or Pound?
Pound 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.