OpenResty vs Tengine
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
Tengine
Nginx-derived web server with extra features
| Feature | OpenResty | Tengine |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Reverse Proxy & Gateways | Reverse Proxy & Gateways |
| License | BSD-2-Clause | BSD-2-Clause |
| Language | C | C |
| Setup difficulty | Hard | Hard |
| Min. RAM | 128 MB | 128 MB |
| Deployment | docker, binary, bare-metal | docker, binary, bare-metal |
| GitHub stars | ★ 13,988 | ★ 13,323 |
| First released | 2011 | 2011 |
| 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 Tengine if…
- Released under the BSD-2-Clause license
- First-class Docker support for quick deployment
- Mature project with 13.3k GitHub stars
- Written in C
Frequently asked questions
Is OpenResty or Tengine 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 Tengine free and open-source?
Yes. OpenResty is licensed under BSD-2-Clause and Tengine under BSD-2-Clause. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run OpenResty and Tengine with Docker?
OpenResty: yes. Tengine: yes.