Fabio vs Tengine
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 | Tengine |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Under-an-hour setup | Under-an-hour setup |
| Health score | 91 · Excellent | 75 · Good |
| Category | Reverse Proxy & Gateways | Reverse Proxy & Gateways |
| License | MIT | BSD-2-Clause |
| Language | Go | C |
| Setup difficulty | Medium | Hard |
| Min. RAM | 128 MB | 128 MB |
| Deployment | docker, binary | docker, binary, bare-metal |
| GitHub stars | ★ 7,342 | ★ 13,371 |
| First released | 2015 | 2011 |
| Replaces | HAProxy, Nginx | Nginx |
What are Fabio and Tengine?
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
Tengine
Tengine is a web server originated by Taobao based on Nginx, adding advanced features for high-traffic websites such as dynamic module loading and enhanced load balancing. It is fully Nginx compatible.
- Nginx-compatible server
- Dynamic module loading
- Enhanced load balancing
- Proven at large scale
Fabio vs Tengine: key differences
Fabio is written in Go, while Tengine is built with C. Licensing differs — MIT for Fabio versus BSD-2-Clause for Tengine. Tengine is the more established project (first released 2011), while Fabio arrived in 2015.
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 Tengine if…
- Released under the BSD-2-Clause license
- First-class Docker support for quick deployment
- Mature project with 13.4k GitHub stars
- Written in C
Frequently asked questions
Is Fabio or Tengine better?
Neither is universally better. Tengine has the larger community, while Fabio is simpler to set up (medium difficulty). Choose based on the comparison table above and your own setup.
Are Fabio and Tengine free and open-source?
Yes. Fabio is licensed under MIT and Tengine under BSD-2-Clause. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Fabio and Tengine with Docker?
Fabio: yes. Tengine: yes.