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?
Pound
Lightweight reverse proxy and HTTPS load balancer
VS
sslh
Protocol multiplexer that shares one port between services
| Feature | Pound | sslh |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Reverse Proxy & Gateways | Reverse Proxy & Gateways |
| License | GPL-3.0 | GPL-2.0 |
| Language | C | C |
| Setup difficulty | Easy | Easy |
| Min. RAM | 32 MB | 32 MB |
| Deployment | bare-metal, source | docker, bare-metal, binary |
| GitHub stars | ★ 70 | ★ 5,098 |
| First released | 2002 | 2008 |
| Replaces | NGINX, HAProxy | HAProxy |
Why pick each one
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
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.