Pi-hole 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?
Pi-hole
Blackhole for Internet advertisements with a GUI for management and
VS
Tengine
Nginx-derived web server with extra features
| Feature | Pi-hole | Tengine |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Reverse Proxy & Gateways | Reverse Proxy & Gateways |
| License | EUPL-1.2 | BSD-2-Clause |
| Language | Shell | C |
| Setup difficulty | Medium | Hard |
| Min. RAM | 512 MB | 128 MB |
| Deployment | docker | docker, binary, bare-metal |
| GitHub stars | ★ 60,247 | ★ 13,323 |
| First released | 2026 | 2011 |
| Replaces | — | Nginx |
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 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 Pi-hole or Tengine better?
Pi-hole is the stronger all-round pick: it has both the larger community and the simpler medium setup. Consider Tengine if its specific feature set fits your needs better.
Are Pi-hole and Tengine free and open-source?
Yes. Pi-hole is licensed under EUPL-1.2 and Tengine under BSD-2-Clause. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Pi-hole and Tengine with Docker?
Pi-hole: yes. Tengine: yes.