Pound 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 | Pound | Sozu |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Read-the-docs project | Under-an-hour setup |
| Health score | 69 · Good | 88 · Excellent |
| Category | Reverse Proxy & Gateways | Reverse Proxy & Gateways |
| License | GPL-3.0 | AGPL-3.0 |
| Language | C | Rust |
| Setup difficulty | Easy | Hard |
| Min. RAM | 32 MB | 128 MB |
| Deployment | bare-metal, source | docker, binary |
| GitHub stars | ★ 70 | ★ 3,734 |
| First released | 2002 | 2016 |
| Replaces | NGINX, HAProxy | HAProxy, Nginx |
What are Pound and Sozu?
Pound
Pound is a small reverse proxy and load balancer that terminates HTTPS and distributes requests across backend web servers. It is intended to be simple, secure, and easy to audit.
- HTTPS termination
- Backend load balancing
- Session stickiness
- Small auditable codebase
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
Pound vs Sozu: key differences
Pound is written in C, while Sozu is built with Rust. Licensing differs — GPL-3.0 for Pound versus AGPL-3.0 for Sozu. Pound is the lighter option, starting around 32 MB of RAM against 128 MB for Sozu. Pound is the more established project (first released 2002), while Sozu arrived in 2016. Sozu has the considerably larger community, at 3,734 GitHub stars versus 70. Sozu lists first-class Docker deployment; Pound does not.
Why pick each one
Choose Pound if…
- Tiny and simple
- Easy to secure
Watch out for
- Limited features
- Minimal community
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 Pound or Sozu better?
Neither is universally better. Sozu has the larger community, while Pound is simpler to set up (easy difficulty). Choose based on the comparison table above and your own setup.
Are Pound and Sozu free and open-source?
Yes. Pound is licensed under GPL-3.0 and Sozu under AGPL-3.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Pound and Sozu with Docker?
Pound: check the project docs for container support. Sozu: yes.
Which is lighter on resources, Pound or Sozu?
Pound has the smaller minimum footprint at 32 MB of RAM, compared to about 128 MB for Sozu. Real-world usage depends on library size, user count, and enabled features.