Traefik vs Wakupator
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?
Traefik
Cloud-native reverse proxy and load balancer
VS
Wakupator
Wake On LAN Machine Manager based on network traffic
| Feature | Traefik | Wakupator |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Reverse Proxy & Gateways | Reverse Proxy & Gateways |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Language | Go | C |
| Setup difficulty | Medium | Medium |
| Min. RAM | 128 MB | 512 MB |
| Deployment | docker, kubernetes, helm | bare-metal |
| GitHub stars | ★ 64,330 | ★ 179 |
| First released | 2015 | 2026 |
| Replaces | HAProxy, AWS ELB | — |
Why pick each one
Choose Traefik if…
- Released under the MIT license
- First-class Docker support for quick deployment
- Kubernetes-ready with Helm charts available
- Mature project with 64.3k GitHub stars
Choose Wakupator if…
- Released under the MIT license
- Written in C
- Lightweight — runs in 512 MB RAM
Frequently asked questions
Is Traefik or Wakupator better?
Neither is universally better. Traefik has the larger community; both share a medium setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.
Are Traefik and Wakupator free and open-source?
Yes. Traefik is licensed under MIT and Wakupator under MIT. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Traefik and Wakupator with Docker?
Traefik: yes. Wakupator: check the project docs for container support.