Pingora vs Sozu
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted reverse proxy & gateways options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.
| Feature | Pingora | Sozu |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Read-the-docs project | Under-an-hour setup |
| Health score | 97 · Excellent | 88 · Excellent |
| Category | Reverse Proxy & Gateways | Reverse Proxy & Gateways |
| License | Apache-2.0 | AGPL-3.0 |
| Language | Rust | Rust |
| Setup difficulty | Hard | Hard |
| Min. RAM | 128 MB | 128 MB |
| Deployment | binary, source | docker, binary |
| GitHub stars | ★ 27,517 | ★ 3,734 |
| First released | 2024 | 2016 |
| Replaces | Nginx | HAProxy, Nginx |
What are Pingora and Sozu?
Pingora
Pingora is an open-source Rust framework from Cloudflare for building fast, secure, and programmable proxies and network services. It powers a large share of Cloudflare's traffic.
- Programmable proxy framework
- Memory-safe Rust core
- High performance
- Battle-tested at Cloudflare
Sozu
Sozu is an open-source HTTP reverse proxy written in Rust that can be reconfigured at runtime without dropping connections. It is built for safety and zero-downtime configuration changes.
- Hot configuration reload
- Memory-safe Rust core
- Zero-downtime changes
- Runtime control API
Pingora vs Sozu: key differences
Both projects are written in Rust. Licensing differs — Apache-2.0 for Pingora versus AGPL-3.0 for Sozu. Sozu is the more established project (first released 2016), while Pingora arrived in 2024. Pingora has the considerably larger community, at 27,517 GitHub stars versus 3,734. Sozu lists first-class Docker deployment; Pingora does not.
Why pick each one
Choose Pingora if…
- Battle-tested at Cloudflare
- Excellent performance
- Memory-safe Rust
Watch out for
- Rust coding required
- Not a turnkey proxy
Choose Sozu if…
- Released under the AGPL-3.0 license
- First-class Docker support for quick deployment
- Active community (3.7k GitHub stars)
- Written in Rust
Frequently asked questions
Is Pingora or Sozu better?
Neither is universally better. Pingora has the larger community; both share a hard setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.
Are Pingora and Sozu free and open-source?
Yes. Pingora is licensed under Apache-2.0 and Sozu under AGPL-3.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Pingora and Sozu with Docker?
Pingora: check the project docs for container support. Sozu: yes.