Caddy vs iodine
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?
Caddy
Fast, multi-platform web server with automatic HTTPS
VS
iodine
IPv4 over DNS tunnel solution, enabling you to start up a socks5 proxy
| Feature | Caddy | iodine |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Reverse Proxy & Gateways | Reverse Proxy & Gateways |
| License | Apache-2.0 | ISC |
| Language | Go | C |
| Setup difficulty | Easy | Medium |
| Min. RAM | 64 MB | 512 MB |
| Deployment | docker, binary, bare-metal | bare-metal |
| GitHub stars | ★ 74,748 | ★ 7,943 |
| First released | 2015 | 2020 |
| Replaces | Nginx, Apache | — |
Why pick each one
Choose iodine if…
- Released under the ISC license
- Mature project with 7.9k GitHub stars
- Written in C
- Lightweight — runs in 512 MB RAM
Frequently asked questions
Is Caddy or iodine better?
Caddy is the stronger all-round pick: it has both the larger community and the simpler easy setup. Consider iodine if its specific feature set fits your needs better.
Are Caddy and iodine free and open-source?
Yes. Caddy is licensed under Apache-2.0 and iodine under ISC. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Caddy and iodine with Docker?
Caddy: yes. iodine: check the project docs for container support.