SHSelfHostIndex

Ingress-NGINX vs SafeLine

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?
IN Ingress-NGINX Kubernetes ingress controller using NGINX VS SA SafeLine Self-hosted web application firewall with a web console
FeatureIngress-NGINXSafeLine
CategoryReverse Proxy & GatewaysReverse Proxy & Gateways
LicenseApache-2.0GPL-3.0
LanguageGoGo
Setup difficultyMediumMedium
Min. RAM256 MB1,024 MB
Deploymentkubernetes, helmdocker
GitHub stars★ 19,485★ 22,312
First released20162023
ReplacesAWS ALB IngressCloudflare WAF

Why pick each one

Choose Ingress-NGINX if…

  • Released under the Apache-2.0 license
  • Kubernetes-ready with Helm charts available
  • Mature project with 19.5k GitHub stars
  • Written in Go
Ingress-NGINX details

Choose SafeLine if…

  • Released under the GPL-3.0 license
  • First-class Docker support for quick deployment
  • Mature project with 22.3k GitHub stars
  • Written in Go
SafeLine details

Frequently asked questions

Is Ingress-NGINX or SafeLine better?

Neither is universally better. SafeLine has the larger community; both share a medium setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.

Are Ingress-NGINX and SafeLine free and open-source?

Yes. Ingress-NGINX is licensed under Apache-2.0 and SafeLine under GPL-3.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.

Can I run Ingress-NGINX and SafeLine with Docker?

Ingress-NGINX: check the project docs for container support. SafeLine: yes.

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