OpenResty vs YARP
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
YARP
Reverse proxy toolkit for building proxies in .NET
| Feature | OpenResty | YARP |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Reverse Proxy & Gateways | Reverse Proxy & Gateways |
| License | BSD-2-Clause | MIT |
| Language | C | C# |
| Setup difficulty | Hard | Medium |
| Min. RAM | 128 MB | 256 MB |
| Deployment | docker, binary, bare-metal | docker, binary, bare-metal |
| GitHub stars | ★ 13,988 | ★ 9,587 |
| First released | 2011 | 2021 |
| 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 YARP if…
- Released under the MIT license
- First-class Docker support for quick deployment
- Mature project with 9.6k GitHub stars
- Written in C#
Frequently asked questions
Is OpenResty or YARP better?
Neither is universally better. OpenResty has the larger community, while YARP is simpler to set up (medium difficulty). Choose based on the comparison table above and your own setup.
Are OpenResty and YARP free and open-source?
Yes. OpenResty is licensed under BSD-2-Clause and YARP under MIT. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run OpenResty and YARP with Docker?
OpenResty: yes. YARP: yes.