OpenResty vs Pingora
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?
OpenResty
Scalable web platform extending Nginx with Lua
VS
Pingora
Rust framework to build fast, reliable network services
| Feature | OpenResty | Pingora |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Reverse Proxy & Gateways | Reverse Proxy & Gateways |
| License | BSD-2-Clause | Apache-2.0 |
| Language | C | Rust |
| Setup difficulty | Hard | Hard |
| Min. RAM | 128 MB | 128 MB |
| Deployment | docker, binary, bare-metal | binary, source |
| GitHub stars | ★ 13,988 | ★ 27,153 |
| First released | 2011 | 2024 |
| Replaces | Nginx | Nginx |
Why pick each one
Choose OpenResty if…
- Released under the BSD-2-Clause license
- First-class Docker support for quick deployment
- Mature project with 14k GitHub stars
- Written in C
Choose Pingora if…
- Released under the Apache-2.0 license
- Mature project with 27.2k GitHub stars
- Written in Rust
- Tiny footprint — runs in 128 MB RAM
Frequently asked questions
Is OpenResty or Pingora better?
Neither is universally better. Pingora has the larger community; both share a hard setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.
Are OpenResty and Pingora free and open-source?
Yes. OpenResty is licensed under BSD-2-Clause and Pingora under Apache-2.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run OpenResty and Pingora with Docker?
OpenResty: yes. Pingora: check the project docs for container support.