NPS vs Pound
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?
NPS
Lightweight proxy server for intranet penetration
VS
Pound
Lightweight reverse proxy and HTTPS load balancer
| Feature | NPS | Pound |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Reverse Proxy & Gateways | Reverse Proxy & Gateways |
| License | GPL-3.0 | GPL-3.0 |
| Language | Go | C |
| Setup difficulty | Medium | Easy |
| Min. RAM | 64 MB | 32 MB |
| Deployment | docker, binary | bare-metal, source |
| GitHub stars | ★ 34,157 | ★ 70 |
| First released | 2019 | 2002 |
| Replaces | ngrok | NGINX, HAProxy |
Why pick each one
Choose NPS if…
- Released under the GPL-3.0 license
- First-class Docker support for quick deployment
- Mature project with 34.2k GitHub stars
- Written in Go
Frequently asked questions
Is NPS or Pound better?
Neither is universally better. NPS has the larger community, while Pound is simpler to set up (easy difficulty). Choose based on the comparison table above and your own setup.
Are NPS and Pound free and open-source?
Yes. NPS is licensed under GPL-3.0 and Pound under GPL-3.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run NPS and Pound with Docker?
NPS: yes. Pound: check the project docs for container support.