relayd 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.
Not the right match-up?
relayd
OpenBSD load balancer and relay daemon
VS
Traefik
Cloud-native reverse proxy and load balancer
| Feature | relayd | Traefik |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Reverse Proxy & Gateways | Reverse Proxy & Gateways |
| License | ISC | MIT |
| Language | C | Go |
| Setup difficulty | Hard | Medium |
| Min. RAM | 32 MB | 128 MB |
| Deployment | bare-metal, source | docker, kubernetes, helm |
| GitHub stars | ★ 3,851 | ★ 64,330 |
| First released | 2006 | 2015 |
| Replaces | HAProxy, F5 BIG-IP | HAProxy, AWS ELB |
Why pick each one
Choose Traefik if…
- Released under the MIT license
- First-class Docker support for quick deployment
- Kubernetes-ready with Helm charts available
- Mature project with 64.3k GitHub stars
Frequently asked questions
Is relayd or Traefik better?
Traefik is the stronger all-round pick: it has both the larger community and the simpler medium setup. Consider relayd if its specific feature set fits your needs better.
Are relayd and Traefik free and open-source?
Yes. relayd is licensed under ISC and Traefik under MIT. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run relayd and Traefik with Docker?
relayd: check the project docs for container support. Traefik: yes.