K8sCalc

$ k8scalc compare traefik caddy

Traefik vs Caddy

Traefik vs Caddy for Kubernetes ingress and edge proxying — automatic TLS, performance, Kubernetes integration, and use cases for self-hosted infrastructure.

FeatureTraefikCaddy
Kubernetes IngressClass
Native
Plugin required
CRD-based routing
Yes (IngressRoute)
No
Automatic TLS
Yes
Yes (simpler config)
HTTP/3 support
Yes
Yes
Config language
YAML / TOML / CRDs
Caddyfile (elegant)
Performance
Good
Excellent
Kubernetes service discovery
Deep
Manual
Community
Large
Medium
Best use case
K8s ingress
Edge proxy / static sites

Verdict

Traefik is the right choice inside Kubernetes — it has native IngressClass support, CRD-based routing, and deep integration with K8s service discovery. Caddy excels as an edge proxy or reverse proxy outside of Kubernetes, with an elegant Caddyfile config and excellent HTTP/3 support. For a Hetzner cluster, use Traefik as the in-cluster ingress controller and optionally put Caddy on a bastion/edge node for non-Kubernetes traffic.

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