Fabio vs Traefik
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted reverse proxy & gateways options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.
Traefik
Cloud-native reverse proxy and load balancer
| Feature | Fabio | Traefik |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Under-an-hour setup | Under-an-hour setup |
| Health score | 91 · Excellent | 100 · Excellent |
| Category | Reverse Proxy & Gateways | Reverse Proxy & Gateways |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Language | Go | Go |
| Setup difficulty | Medium | Medium |
| Min. RAM | 128 MB | 128 MB |
| Deployment | docker, binary | docker, kubernetes, helm |
| GitHub stars | ★ 7,342 | ★ 64,931 |
| First released | 2015 | 2015 |
| Replaces | HAProxy, Nginx | HAProxy, AWS ELB |
What are Fabio and Traefik?
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
Traefik
Traefik is a modern reverse proxy and load balancer that automatically discovers services and configures routing. It integrates natively with Docker, Kubernetes, and other orchestrators.
- Automatic service discovery
- Native Docker and Kubernetes support
- Let's Encrypt integration
- Live configuration reload
Fabio vs Traefik: key differences
Both projects are written in Go. Traefik has the considerably larger community, at 64,931 GitHub stars versus 7,342.
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 Traefik if…
- Automatic service discovery
- Built-in Let's Encrypt
- First-class Docker support
Watch out for
- Configuration learning curve
- Debugging can be opaque
Frequently asked questions
Is Fabio or Traefik better?
Neither is universally better. Traefik has the larger community; both share a medium setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.
Are Fabio and Traefik free and open-source?
Yes. Fabio is licensed under MIT and Traefik under MIT. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Fabio and Traefik with Docker?
Fabio: yes. Traefik: yes.