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.
| Feature | Fabio | gobetween |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Under-an-hour setup | Under-an-hour setup |
| Health score | 91 · Excellent | 37 · At risk |
| 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 | ★ 7,343 | ★ 1,988 |
| First released | 2015 | 2016 |
| Replaces | HAProxy, Nginx | HAProxy, NGINX Plus |
What are Fabio and gobetween?
Fabio
Fabio is a fast, modern, zero-configuration load balancing HTTP and TCP router that automatically updates routes from Consul. Services register themselves with no manual configuration.
- Zero-config routing
- Consul service discovery
- HTTP and TCP load balancing
- Hot route updates
gobetween
gobetween is a free, lightweight L4 load balancer and reverse proxy supporting TCP and UDP with multiple discovery and health-check backends. It is designed for simple, fast traffic distribution.
- TCP and UDP balancing
- Service discovery
- Health checks
- REST API
Fabio vs gobetween: key differences
Both projects are written in Go. Gobetween is the lighter option, starting around 64 MB of RAM against 128 MB for Fabio. Fabio has the considerably larger community, at 7,343 GitHub stars versus 1,988.
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
Choose gobetween if…
- Single small binary
- Easy to configure
Watch out for
- L4 only
- Smaller community
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.
Which is lighter on resources, Fabio or gobetween?
gobetween has the smaller minimum footprint at 64 MB of RAM, compared to about 128 MB for Fabio. Real-world usage depends on library size, user count, and enabled features.