SHSelfHostIndex

Caddy vs SWAG

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 Fast, multi-platform web server with automatic HTTPS VS SW SWAG Secure web application gateway with Nginx and Certbot
FeatureCaddySWAG
CategoryReverse Proxy & GatewaysReverse Proxy & Gateways
LicenseApache-2.0GPL-3.0
LanguageGoDockerfile
Setup difficultyEasyEasy
Min. RAM64 MB128 MB
Deploymentdocker, binary, bare-metaldocker
GitHub stars★ 74,748★ 3,709
First released20152020
ReplacesNginx, ApacheCloudflare

Why pick each one

Choose Caddy if…

  • Zero-config TLS
  • Easy to learn
Caddy details

Choose SWAG if…

  • Released under the GPL-3.0 license
  • Easy to set up — beginner-friendly
  • First-class Docker support for quick deployment
  • Active community (3.7k GitHub stars)
SWAG details

Frequently asked questions

Is Caddy or SWAG better?

Neither is universally better. Caddy has the larger community; both share a easy setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.

Are Caddy and SWAG free and open-source?

Yes. Caddy is licensed under Apache-2.0 and SWAG under GPL-3.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.

Can I run Caddy and SWAG with Docker?

Caddy: yes. SWAG: yes.

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