Tengine vs YARP
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted reverse proxy & gateways options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.
| Feature | Tengine | YARP |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Under-an-hour setup | Under-an-hour setup |
| Health score | 75 · Good | 78 · Good |
| Category | Reverse Proxy & Gateways | Reverse Proxy & Gateways |
| License | BSD-2-Clause | MIT |
| Language | C | C# |
| Setup difficulty | Hard | Medium |
| Min. RAM | 128 MB | 256 MB |
| Deployment | docker, binary, bare-metal | docker, binary, bare-metal |
| GitHub stars | ★ 13,373 | ★ 9,616 |
| First released | 2011 | 2021 |
| Replaces | Nginx | Nginx |
What are Tengine and YARP?
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
YARP
YARP, short for Yet Another Reverse Proxy, is a Microsoft open-source toolkit for building fast, customizable reverse proxy servers using ASP.NET Core. Developers configure it in code or config files.
- Build custom reverse proxies
- ASP.NET Core based
- Dynamic configuration
- Load balancing and health checks
Tengine vs YARP: key differences
Tengine is written in C, while YARP is built with C#. Licensing differs — BSD-2-Clause for Tengine versus MIT for YARP. Tengine is the lighter option, starting around 128 MB of RAM against 256 MB for YARP. Tengine is the more established project (first released 2011), while YARP arrived in 2021.
Why pick each one
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
Choose YARP if…
- Released under the MIT license
- First-class Docker support for quick deployment
- Mature project with 9.6k GitHub stars
- Written in C#
Frequently asked questions
Is Tengine or YARP better?
Neither is universally better. Tengine has the larger community, while YARP is simpler to set up (medium difficulty). Choose based on the comparison table above and your own setup.
Are Tengine and YARP free and open-source?
Yes. Tengine is licensed under BSD-2-Clause and YARP under MIT. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Tengine and YARP with Docker?
Tengine: yes. YARP: yes.
Which is lighter on resources, Tengine or YARP?
Tengine has the smaller minimum footprint at 128 MB of RAM, compared to about 256 MB for YARP. Real-world usage depends on library size, user count, and enabled features.