SHSelfHostIndex

Pound vs sslh

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?
PO Pound Lightweight reverse proxy and HTTPS load balancer VS SS sslh Protocol multiplexer that shares one port between services
FeaturePoundsslh
Deploy effortRead-the-docs projectUnder-an-hour setup
Health score69 · Good87 · Excellent
CategoryReverse Proxy & GatewaysReverse Proxy & Gateways
LicenseGPL-3.0GPL-2.0
LanguageCC
Setup difficultyEasyEasy
Min. RAM32 MB32 MB
Deploymentbare-metal, sourcedocker, bare-metal, binary
GitHub stars★ 70★ 5,117
First released20022008
ReplacesNGINX, HAProxyHAProxy

What are Pound and sslh?

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

sslh

sslh is an applicative protocol multiplexer that lets HTTPS, SSH, OpenVPN, and other services share the same TCP port. It inspects the first bytes of a connection and forwards it to the right server.

  • Share one port across protocols
  • SSH and HTTPS on port 443
  • Tiny resource footprint
  • Probe-based routing

Pound vs sslh: key differences

Both projects are written in C. Licensing differs — GPL-3.0 for Pound versus GPL-2.0 for sslh. Pound is the more established project (first released 2002), while sslh arrived in 2008. Sslh has the considerably larger community, at 5,117 GitHub stars versus 70. Sslh 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
Pound details

Choose sslh if…

  • Released under the GPL-2.0 license
  • Easy to set up — beginner-friendly
  • First-class Docker support for quick deployment
  • Mature project with 5.1k GitHub stars
sslh details

Frequently asked questions

Is Pound or sslh better?

Neither is universally better. sslh has the larger community; both share a easy setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.

Are Pound and sslh free and open-source?

Yes. Pound is licensed under GPL-3.0 and sslh under GPL-2.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.

Can I run Pound and sslh with Docker?

Pound: check the project docs for container support. sslh: yes.

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