gobetween vs relayd
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted reverse proxy & gateways options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.
| Feature | gobetween | relayd |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Under-an-hour setup | Read-the-docs project |
| Health score | 37 · At risk | 86 · Excellent |
| Category | Reverse Proxy & Gateways | Reverse Proxy & Gateways |
| License | MIT | ISC |
| Language | Go | C |
| Setup difficulty | Easy | Hard |
| Min. RAM | 64 MB | 32 MB |
| Deployment | docker, binary | bare-metal, source |
| GitHub stars | ★ 1,988 | ★ 3,884 |
| First released | 2016 | 2006 |
| Replaces | HAProxy, NGINX Plus | HAProxy, F5 BIG-IP |
What are gobetween and relayd?
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
relayd
relayd is OpenBSD's daemon for relaying and load-balancing TCP connections, supporting application-layer filtering and SSL/TLS acceleration. It integrates closely with the pf packet filter.
- TCP load balancing
- Application-layer filtering
- TLS acceleration
- pf integration
gobetween vs relayd: key differences
Gobetween is written in Go, while relayd is built with C. Licensing differs — MIT for gobetween versus ISC for relayd. Relayd is the lighter option, starting around 32 MB of RAM against 64 MB for gobetween. Relayd is the more established project (first released 2006), while gobetween arrived in 2016. Gobetween lists first-class Docker deployment; relayd does not.
Why pick each one
Choose gobetween if…
- Single small binary
- Easy to configure
Watch out for
- L4 only
- Smaller community
Choose relayd if…
- Tightly integrated with OpenBSD
- Very lightweight
Watch out for
- OpenBSD focused
- Terse configuration
Frequently asked questions
Is gobetween or relayd better?
Neither is universally better. relayd 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 gobetween and relayd free and open-source?
Yes. gobetween is licensed under MIT and relayd under ISC. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run gobetween and relayd with Docker?
gobetween: yes. relayd: check the project docs for container support.
Which is lighter on resources, gobetween or relayd?
relayd has the smaller minimum footprint at 32 MB of RAM, compared to about 64 MB for gobetween. Real-world usage depends on library size, user count, and enabled features.