lego 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?
lego
Let's Encrypt and ACME client written in Go
VS
Traefik
Cloud-native reverse proxy and load balancer
| Feature | lego | Traefik |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Reverse Proxy & Gateways | Reverse Proxy & Gateways |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Language | Go | Go |
| Setup difficulty | Easy | Medium |
| Min. RAM | 64 MB | 128 MB |
| Deployment | binary, docker | docker, kubernetes, helm |
| GitHub stars | ★ 9,789 | ★ 64,330 |
| First released | 2015 | 2015 |
| Replaces | Certbot | HAProxy, AWS ELB |
Why pick each one
Choose lego if…
- Released under the MIT license
- Easy to set up — beginner-friendly
- First-class Docker support for quick deployment
- Mature project with 9.8k GitHub stars
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 lego or Traefik better?
Neither is universally better. Traefik has the larger community, while lego is simpler to set up (easy difficulty). Choose based on the comparison table above and your own setup.
Are lego and Traefik free and open-source?
Yes. lego is licensed under MIT and Traefik under MIT. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run lego and Traefik with Docker?
lego: yes. Traefik: yes.