Fabio vs Pound
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 | Pound |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Under-an-hour setup | Read-the-docs project |
| Health score | 91 · Excellent | 69 · Good |
| Category | Reverse Proxy & Gateways | Reverse Proxy & Gateways |
| License | MIT | GPL-3.0 |
| Language | Go | C |
| Setup difficulty | Medium | Easy |
| Min. RAM | 128 MB | 32 MB |
| Deployment | docker, binary | bare-metal, source |
| GitHub stars | ★ 7,342 | ★ 70 |
| First released | 2015 | 2002 |
| Replaces | HAProxy, Nginx | NGINX, HAProxy |
What are Fabio and Pound?
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
Pound
Pound is a small reverse proxy and load balancer that terminates HTTPS and distributes requests across backend web servers. It is intended to be simple, secure, and easy to audit.
- HTTPS termination
- Backend load balancing
- Session stickiness
- Small auditable codebase
Fabio vs Pound: key differences
Fabio is written in Go, while Pound is built with C. Licensing differs — MIT for Fabio versus GPL-3.0 for Pound. Pound is the lighter option, starting around 32 MB of RAM against 128 MB for Fabio. Pound is the more established project (first released 2002), while Fabio arrived in 2015. Fabio has the considerably larger community, at 7,342 GitHub stars versus 70. Fabio lists first-class Docker deployment; Pound does not.
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 Pound if…
- Tiny and simple
- Easy to secure
Watch out for
- Limited features
- Minimal community
Frequently asked questions
Is Fabio or Pound better?
Neither is universally better. Fabio has the larger community, while Pound is simpler to set up (easy difficulty). Choose based on the comparison table above and your own setup.
Are Fabio and Pound free and open-source?
Yes. Fabio is licensed under MIT and Pound under GPL-3.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Fabio and Pound with Docker?
Fabio: yes. Pound: check the project docs for container support.
Which is lighter on resources, Fabio or Pound?
Pound has the smaller minimum footprint at 32 MB of RAM, compared to about 128 MB for Fabio. Real-world usage depends on library size, user count, and enabled features.