gobetween 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 | gobetween | Traefik |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Under-an-hour setup | Under-an-hour setup |
| Health score | 37 · At risk | 100 · Excellent |
| Category | Reverse Proxy & Gateways | Reverse Proxy & Gateways |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Language | Go | Go |
| Setup difficulty | Easy | Medium |
| Min. RAM | 64 MB | 128 MB |
| Deployment | docker, binary | docker, kubernetes, helm |
| GitHub stars | ★ 1,988 | ★ 64,942 |
| First released | 2016 | 2015 |
| Replaces | HAProxy, NGINX Plus | HAProxy, AWS ELB |
What are gobetween and Traefik?
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
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
gobetween vs Traefik: key differences
Both projects are written in Go. Gobetween is the lighter option, starting around 64 MB of RAM against 128 MB for Traefik. Traefik has the considerably larger community, at 64,942 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 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 gobetween or Traefik better?
Neither is universally better. Traefik 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 Traefik free and open-source?
Yes. gobetween is licensed under MIT and Traefik under MIT. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run gobetween and Traefik with Docker?
gobetween: yes. Traefik: yes.
Which is lighter on resources, gobetween or Traefik?
gobetween has the smaller minimum footprint at 64 MB of RAM, compared to about 128 MB for Traefik. Real-world usage depends on library size, user count, and enabled features.