Fabio vs gobetween
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?
Fabio
Zero-config load balancer driven by Consul
VS
gobetween
Modern L4 load balancer and reverse proxy
| Feature | Fabio | gobetween |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Reverse Proxy & Gateways | Reverse Proxy & Gateways |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Language | Go | Go |
| Setup difficulty | Medium | Easy |
| Min. RAM | 128 MB | 64 MB |
| Deployment | docker, binary | docker, binary |
| GitHub stars | ★ 7,334 | ★ 1,986 |
| First released | 2015 | 2016 |
| Replaces | HAProxy, Nginx | HAProxy, NGINX Plus |
Why pick each one
Choose Fabio if…
- Released under the MIT license
- First-class Docker support for quick deployment
- Mature project with 7.3k GitHub stars
- Written in Go
Frequently asked questions
Is Fabio or gobetween better?
Neither is universally better. Fabio has the larger community, while gobetween is simpler to set up (easy difficulty). Choose based on the comparison table above and your own setup.
Are Fabio and gobetween free and open-source?
Yes. Fabio is licensed under MIT and gobetween under MIT. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Fabio and gobetween with Docker?
Fabio: yes. gobetween: yes.