Caddy vs Hetzner Load Balancer
A detailed comparison to help you choose between Caddy and Hetzner Load Balancer.
Quick Verdict
4.2/5
Caddy
0 reviews
3.9/5
Hetzner Load Balancer
0 reviews
Caddy is rated higher (4.2 vs 3.9). Caddy is a modern open source web server and load balancer with automatic HTTPS (Let's Encrypt/ZeroSSL) by default. No SSL configuration needed. Used for reverse proxying and load balancing. Hetzner's managed load balancer distributes TCP and HTTP(S) traffic across Hetzner Cloud and dedicated root server targets, with configurable health checks, SSL termination and sticky sessions. From €7.49/month, hourly billed.
Caddy Automatic HTTPS load balancer and web server | Hetzner Load Balancer Managed load balancing with Layer 4/7 support and auto-scaling integration | |
|---|---|---|
| Overview | ||
| Rating | 4.2 (0 reviews)✓ | 3.9 (0 reviews) |
| Pricing model | free | paid |
| Starting price | Free✓ | From $7.49/mo |
| Best for | Developers and SaaS teams who want a reverse proxy or web server that handles TLS certificates automatically with minimal configuration | Teams already running Hetzner Cloud or Hetzner dedicated servers who need a cheap, managed, well-documented entry point with TLS termination and health checks. |
| Specifications (entry plan) | ||
| CPU cores | — | — |
| RAM | — | — |
| Storage | — | — |
| Bandwidth | — | 20 TB/mo |
| SLA uptime | — | — |
| Data-center count | — | 6 |
| Features | ||
| IPv6 | ✓ | |
| DDoS protection | ✓ | |
| Automated backups | ||
| Snapshots | ||
| Managed option | ||
| Bare metal | ||
| GPU available | ||
| S3-compatible | ||
| Hourly billing | ✓ | |
| Free tier | ✓ | |
| Data-center locations | ||
| Regions | — | Falkenstein (DE)Nuremberg (DE)Helsinki (FI)Ashburn, VA (US)Hillsboro, OR (US)Singapore (SG) |
| Tags | ||
| Tags | free tieropen sourceself hostable | managed optioneu datacenterus datacenter |
| Visit Caddy → | Visit Hetzner Load Balancer → | |
Caddy
Pros
- + Automatic HTTPS by default — certificate issuance and renewal built in
- + Free, Apache 2.0, single static Go binary with no runtime dependencies
- + Reverse proxy with load balancing, health checks, HTTP/2 and HTTP/3
- + On-Demand TLS for SaaS platforms issuing certs on customer domains
- + Live JSON config API plus Caddyfile; fleet-wide cert coordination via shared storage
Cons
- - Raw throughput behind Nginx at extreme concurrency
- - Smaller module ecosystem; plugins require compiling a custom binary
- - Businesses are expected to buy sponsorships ($2,999/mo+) for support
- - No SLA or contractual support from a large vendor
Hetzner Load Balancer
Pros
- + Cheap for a managed load balancer: LB11 at €7.49/month with 20 TB EU included traffic and a Primary IPv4 included
- + Targets both Hetzner Cloud servers and dedicated root servers over public or private IPv4
- + Solid HTTP feature set: TLS termination with managed certificates, sticky sessions, HTTP-to-HTTPS redirect, proxy protocol
- + Per-service health checks (HTTP/HTTPS/TCP) with configurable interval, timeout, retries and expected responses
- + Hourly billing with monthly cap, six locations across four network zones, first-class API/Terraform/Kubernetes integration
Cons
- - Only Round Robin and Least Connections — no IP-hash, weighting, or L7 path-based routing rules
- - No request logging at all; no WAF or bot management; no built-in autoscaling
- - HTTPS services forward plain HTTP to targets; end-to-end TLS requires a TCP service and loses HTTP features
- - Hetzner targets only (no multi-cloud or on-prem backends); load balancers are bound to a single location
- - No product-level SLA or credits and no published throughput figures per plan
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