SWAG vs Varnish Cache
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?
SWAG
Secure web application gateway with Nginx and Certbot
VS
Varnish Cache
High-performance HTTP accelerator and caching proxy
| Feature | SWAG | Varnish Cache |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Reverse Proxy & Gateways | Reverse Proxy & Gateways |
| License | GPL-3.0 | BSD-2-Clause |
| Language | Dockerfile | C |
| Setup difficulty | Easy | Hard |
| Min. RAM | 128 MB | 256 MB |
| Deployment | docker | docker, binary, bare-metal |
| GitHub stars | ★ 3,709 | ★ 4,050 |
| First released | 2020 | 2006 |
| Replaces | Cloudflare | Cloudflare, Squid |
Why pick each one
Choose SWAG if…
- Released under the GPL-3.0 license
- Easy to set up — beginner-friendly
- First-class Docker support for quick deployment
- Active community (3.7k GitHub stars)
Choose Varnish Cache if…
- Released under the BSD-2-Clause license
- First-class Docker support for quick deployment
- Active community (4k GitHub stars)
- Written in C
Frequently asked questions
Is SWAG or Varnish Cache better?
Neither is universally better. Varnish Cache has the larger community, while SWAG is simpler to set up (easy difficulty). Choose based on the comparison table above and your own setup.
Are SWAG and Varnish Cache free and open-source?
Yes. SWAG is licensed under GPL-3.0 and Varnish Cache under BSD-2-Clause. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run SWAG and Varnish Cache with Docker?
SWAG: yes. Varnish Cache: yes.