Pi-hole vs Varnish Cache
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
Varnish Cache
High-performance HTTP accelerator and caching proxy
| Feature | Pi-hole | Varnish Cache |
|---|---|---|
| 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 | 256 MB |
| Deployment | docker | docker, binary, bare-metal |
| GitHub stars | ★ 60,247 | ★ 4,050 |
| First released | 2026 | 2006 |
| Replaces | — | Cloudflare, Squid |
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 Varnish Cache if…
- Released under the BSD-2-Clause license
- First-class Docker support for quick deployment
- Active community (4k GitHub stars)
- Written in C
Frequently asked questions
Is Pi-hole or Varnish Cache better?
Pi-hole is the stronger all-round pick: it has both the larger community and the simpler medium setup. Consider Varnish Cache if its specific feature set fits your needs better.
Are Pi-hole and Varnish Cache free and open-source?
Yes. Pi-hole is licensed under EUPL-1.2 and Varnish Cache under BSD-2-Clause. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Pi-hole and Varnish Cache with Docker?
Pi-hole: yes. Varnish Cache: yes.