Caddy vs Varnish Cache
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
Varnish Cache
High-performance HTTP accelerator and caching proxy
| Feature | Caddy | Varnish Cache |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Reverse Proxy & Gateways | Reverse Proxy & Gateways |
| License | Apache-2.0 | BSD-2-Clause |
| Language | Go | C |
| Setup difficulty | Easy | Hard |
| Min. RAM | 64 MB | 256 MB |
| Deployment | docker, binary, bare-metal | docker, binary, bare-metal |
| GitHub stars | ★ 74,748 | ★ 4,050 |
| First released | 2015 | 2006 |
| Replaces | Nginx, Apache | Cloudflare, Squid |
Why pick each one
Choose Varnish Cache if…
- Released under the BSD-2-Clause license
- First-class Docker support for quick deployment
- Active community (4k GitHub stars)
- Written in C
Frequently asked questions
Is Caddy or Varnish Cache better?
Caddy is the stronger all-round pick: it has both the larger community and the simpler easy setup. Consider Varnish Cache if its specific feature set fits your needs better.
Are Caddy and Varnish Cache free and open-source?
Yes. Caddy is licensed under Apache-2.0 and Varnish Cache under BSD-2-Clause. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Caddy and Varnish Cache with Docker?
Caddy: yes. Varnish Cache: yes.