Nginx Proxy Manager 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.

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FeatureNginx Proxy ManagerTraefik
CategoryReverse Proxy & GatewaysReverse Proxy & Gateways
LicenseMITMIT
LanguageTypeScriptGo
Setup difficultyEasyMedium
Min. RAM256 MB128 MB
Deploymentdockerdocker, kubernetes, helm
GitHub stars★ 33,804★ 64,330
First released20192015
ReplacesCloudflareHAProxy, AWS ELB

Why pick each one

Choose Nginx Proxy Manager if…

  • Beginner-friendly
  • Free certificates built in
Nginx Proxy Manager details

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
Traefik details

Frequently asked questions

Is Nginx Proxy Manager or Traefik better?

Neither is universally better. Traefik has the larger community, while Nginx Proxy Manager is simpler to set up (easy difficulty). Choose based on the comparison table above and your own setup.

Are Nginx Proxy Manager and Traefik free and open-source?

Yes. Nginx Proxy Manager is licensed under MIT and Traefik under MIT. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.

Can I run Nginx Proxy Manager and Traefik with Docker?

Nginx Proxy Manager: yes. Traefik: yes.

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