Sozu vs Tengine
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted reverse proxy & gateways options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.
| Feature | Sozu | Tengine |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Under-an-hour setup | Under-an-hour setup |
| Health score | 88 · Excellent | 75 · Good |
| Category | Reverse Proxy & Gateways | Reverse Proxy & Gateways |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | BSD-2-Clause |
| Language | Rust | C |
| Setup difficulty | Hard | Hard |
| Min. RAM | 128 MB | 128 MB |
| Deployment | docker, binary | docker, binary, bare-metal |
| GitHub stars | ★ 3,734 | ★ 13,373 |
| First released | 2016 | 2011 |
| Replaces | HAProxy, Nginx | Nginx |
What are Sozu and Tengine?
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
Tengine
Tengine is a web server originated by Taobao based on Nginx, adding advanced features for high-traffic websites such as dynamic module loading and enhanced load balancing. It is fully Nginx compatible.
- Nginx-compatible server
- Dynamic module loading
- Enhanced load balancing
- Proven at large scale
Sozu vs Tengine: key differences
Sozu is written in Rust, while Tengine is built with C. Licensing differs — AGPL-3.0 for Sozu versus BSD-2-Clause for Tengine. Tengine is the more established project (first released 2011), while Sozu arrived in 2016. Tengine has the considerably larger community, at 13,373 GitHub stars versus 3,734.
Why pick each one
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
Choose Tengine if…
- Released under the BSD-2-Clause license
- First-class Docker support for quick deployment
- Mature project with 13.4k GitHub stars
- Written in C
Frequently asked questions
Is Sozu or Tengine better?
Neither is universally better. Tengine has the larger community; both share a hard setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.
Are Sozu and Tengine free and open-source?
Yes. Sozu is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and Tengine under BSD-2-Clause. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Sozu and Tengine with Docker?
Sozu: yes. Tengine: yes.