Pi-hole vs Pomerium
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?
Pi-hole
Blackhole for Internet advertisements with a GUI for management and
VS
Pomerium
Identity-aware reverse proxy for zero-trust access
| Feature | Pi-hole | Pomerium |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Reverse Proxy & Gateways | Reverse Proxy & Gateways |
| License | EUPL-1.2 | Apache-2.0 |
| Language | Shell | Go |
| Setup difficulty | Medium | Medium |
| Min. RAM | 512 MB | 256 MB |
| Deployment | docker | docker, kubernetes, helm |
| GitHub stars | ★ 60,247 | ★ 4,944 |
| First released | 2026 | 2019 |
| Replaces | — | Cloudflare Access, BeyondCorp |
Why pick each one
Choose Pi-hole if…
- Released under the EUPL-1.2 license
- First-class Docker support for quick deployment
- Mature project with 60.2k GitHub stars
- Written in Shell
Choose Pomerium if…
- Released under the Apache-2.0 license
- First-class Docker support for quick deployment
- Kubernetes-ready with Helm charts available
- Active community (4.9k GitHub stars)
Frequently asked questions
Is Pi-hole or Pomerium better?
Neither is universally better. Pi-hole has the larger community; both share a medium setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.
Are Pi-hole and Pomerium free and open-source?
Yes. Pi-hole is licensed under EUPL-1.2 and Pomerium under Apache-2.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Pi-hole and Pomerium with Docker?
Pi-hole: yes. Pomerium: yes.