OpenResty vs Sozu
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted reverse proxy & gateways options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.
| Feature | OpenResty | Sozu |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Under-an-hour setup | Under-an-hour setup |
| Health score | 87 · Excellent | 88 · Excellent |
| Category | Reverse Proxy & Gateways | Reverse Proxy & Gateways |
| License | BSD-2-Clause | AGPL-3.0 |
| Language | C | Rust |
| Setup difficulty | Hard | Hard |
| Min. RAM | 128 MB | 128 MB |
| Deployment | docker, binary, bare-metal | docker, binary |
| GitHub stars | ★ 14,045 | ★ 3,734 |
| First released | 2011 | 2016 |
| Replaces | Nginx | HAProxy, Nginx |
What are OpenResty and Sozu?
OpenResty
OpenResty is a full-fledged web platform that bundles Nginx with LuaJIT and many libraries, enabling powerful programmable proxies and gateways. It is the foundation for several API gateways.
- Nginx plus LuaJIT scripting
- Programmable request handling
- Foundation for API gateways
- High performance
Sozu
Sozu is an open-source HTTP reverse proxy written in Rust that can be reconfigured at runtime without dropping connections. It is built for safety and zero-downtime configuration changes.
- Hot configuration reload
- Memory-safe Rust core
- Zero-downtime changes
- Runtime control API
OpenResty vs Sozu: key differences
OpenResty is written in C, while Sozu is built with Rust. Licensing differs — BSD-2-Clause for OpenResty versus AGPL-3.0 for Sozu. OpenResty is the more established project (first released 2011), while Sozu arrived in 2016. OpenResty has the considerably larger community, at 14,045 GitHub stars versus 3,734.
Why pick each one
Choose OpenResty if…
- Very high performance
- Programmable with Lua
- Battle-tested Nginx core
Watch out for
- Lua knowledge required
- Config more complex than Nginx
Choose Sozu if…
- Released under the AGPL-3.0 license
- First-class Docker support for quick deployment
- Active community (3.7k GitHub stars)
- Written in Rust
Frequently asked questions
Is OpenResty or Sozu better?
Neither is universally better. OpenResty has the larger community; both share a hard setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.
Are OpenResty and Sozu free and open-source?
Yes. OpenResty is licensed under BSD-2-Clause and Sozu under AGPL-3.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run OpenResty and Sozu with Docker?
OpenResty: yes. Sozu: yes.