# NGINX vs nginx-love

> Two self-hosted projects, compared on the numbers selfhost.directory tracks live: score, popularity, release cadence and setup effort.

| | NGINX | nginx-love |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 84/100 ✓ | 50/100 |
| Rank in category | #2 of 12 in Web Servers | #3 of 3 in Web Application Firewall |
| GitHub stars | 31 998 ✓ | 312 |
| Stars, last 30 days | +277 | — |
| Stable releases, 12 months | 21 ✓ | 1 |
| Latest release | release-1.31.8 · 21 Oct 2026 ✓ | v4.01 · 31 Oct 2025 |
| Setup | Moderate ✓ | Moderate |
| Official Docker image | Yes ✓ | No |
| License | BSD-2-Clause | Apache-2.0 |
| Main language | C | Typescript |

## Which one should you pick?

NGINX scores 84/100 against 50/100 for nginx-love, so it is the safer default.

NGINX ships more often: 21 stable releases in the past year, against 1 for nginx-love.

NGINX is growing faster right now (+277 stars in 30 days).

## Details

- [NGINX](https://selfhost.directory/project/nginx) (markdown: https://selfhost.directory/project/nginx.md)
- [nginx-love](https://selfhost.directory/project/nginx-love) (markdown: https://selfhost.directory/project/nginx-love.md)

---
Source: https://selfhost.directory/compare/nginx-vs-nginx-love