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.
Not the right match-up?
Fabio
Zero-config load balancer driven by Consul
VS
Pound
Lightweight reverse proxy and HTTPS load balancer
| Feature | Fabio | Pound |
|---|---|---|
| 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 | ★ 7,334 | ★ 70 |
| First released | 2015 | 2002 |
| Replaces | HAProxy, Nginx | NGINX, HAProxy |
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 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.