Caddy vs Hetzner Load Balancer
A detailed comparison to help you choose between Caddy and Hetzner Load Balancer.
Quick Verdict
4.9/5
Caddy
14 reviews
4.0/5
Hetzner Load Balancer
47 reviews
Caddy is rated higher (4.9 vs 4.0). 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 traffic across servers with configurable health checks, SSL termination, and direct integration with Hetzner Cloud. Suitable for teams running infrastructure on Hetzner.
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 | 4.9 (14 reviews)✓ | 4.0 (47 reviews) |
| Pricing model | free | paid |
| Starting price | Free✓ | From €6/mo |
| Best for | Developers wanting a load balancer/reverse proxy with automatic SSL that requires minimal configuration | Teams running applications on Hetzner Cloud who need straightforward, managed load balancing without vendor lock-in concerns. |
| Tags | ||
| Tags | free tieropen sourceself hostable | managed optioneu datacenterus datacenter |
| Visit Caddy → | Visit Hetzner Load Balancer → | |
Caddy
Pros
- + Automatic HTTPS — no SSL configuration needed
- + Simple Caddyfile configuration
- + Built-in load balancing and reverse proxy
Cons
- - Less performance than Nginx at extreme load
- - Smaller community than Nginx
Hetzner Load Balancer
Pros
- + Scale traffic handling without modifying application code
- + Terminate SSL/TLS encryption at the load balancer to reduce backend load
- + Configure round-robin, least connections, or IP-hash distribution algorithms
- + Monitor backend health with customizable check intervals and thresholds
Cons
- - Limited feature parity if comparing advanced options from AWS ELB or Google Cloud Load Balancer
- - Only cost-effective if already using Hetzner Cloud for backend infrastructure
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