gobetween vs sslh
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 | sslh |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Under-an-hour setup | Under-an-hour setup |
| Health score | 37 · At risk | 87 · Excellent |
| Category | Reverse Proxy & Gateways | Reverse Proxy & Gateways |
| License | MIT | GPL-2.0 |
| Language | Go | C |
| Setup difficulty | Easy | Easy |
| Min. RAM | 64 MB | 32 MB |
| Deployment | docker, binary | docker, bare-metal, binary |
| GitHub stars | ★ 1,988 | ★ 5,117 |
| First released | 2016 | 2008 |
| Replaces | HAProxy, NGINX Plus | HAProxy |
What are gobetween and sslh?
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
sslh
sslh is an applicative protocol multiplexer that lets HTTPS, SSH, OpenVPN, and other services share the same TCP port. It inspects the first bytes of a connection and forwards it to the right server.
- Share one port across protocols
- SSH and HTTPS on port 443
- Tiny resource footprint
- Probe-based routing
gobetween vs sslh: key differences
Gobetween is written in Go, while sslh is built with C. Licensing differs — MIT for gobetween versus GPL-2.0 for sslh. Sslh is the lighter option, starting around 32 MB of RAM against 64 MB for gobetween. Sslh is the more established project (first released 2008), while gobetween arrived in 2016. Sslh has the considerably larger community, at 5,117 GitHub stars versus 1,988.
Why pick each one
Choose gobetween if…
- Single small binary
- Easy to configure
Watch out for
- L4 only
- Smaller community
Choose sslh if…
- Released under the GPL-2.0 license
- Easy to set up — beginner-friendly
- First-class Docker support for quick deployment
- Mature project with 5.1k GitHub stars
Frequently asked questions
Is gobetween or sslh better?
Neither is universally better. sslh has the larger community; both share a easy setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.
Are gobetween and sslh free and open-source?
Yes. gobetween is licensed under MIT and sslh under GPL-2.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run gobetween and sslh with Docker?
gobetween: yes. sslh: yes.
Which is lighter on resources, gobetween or sslh?
sslh 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.