Updated August 2026
    Actively maintained
    Real momentum
    3.7k

    SWAG (Secure Web Application Gateway): Maintenance, Licence and Alternatives

    Nginx webserver and reverse proxy with PHP support, built-in Certbot (Let's Encrypt) client and fail2ban integration.

    TL;DR • SWAG (Secure Web Application Gateway) • as of August 2026

    SWAG (Secure Web Application Gateway) is an open-source web servers project, with 3.7k GitHub stars and a health score of 78/100. It committed 112 times in the last twelve months across 12 of those months, and its status is actively maintained. Licence: GPL-3.0. It has real momentum, so treat it as a live competitor rather than a stale repository.

    3.7k
    GitHub stars
    78/100
    Health score
    112
    Commits (12 mo)
    12/12
    Active months

    Maintenance health

    Status Actively maintained — Committed within the last 45 days.
    Last commit 2026-08-15
    Days since last commit 2
    Commits, last 3 months 30
    Commits, last 12 months 112
    Months with activity 12 of 12
    Last release 2026-08-15
    Archived No
    Licence GPL-3.0
    Category Web Servers

    Health score combines commit recency, twelve-month commit volume, months with activity, release recency and archive state. Metadata refreshed August 2026.

    What the licence lets you do

    GPL-3.0

    Copyleft (GPL, AGPL, MPL): derivative work must stay open. AGPL also covers software offered over a network, which blocks most closed SaaS wrappers.

    This matters most when you plan to sell a hosted version. A permissive licence means anyone — including a competitor with more capital — can do the same, so your defensibility has to come from distribution, support or data, not from the code.

    What SWAG (Secure Web Application Gateway) means for your idea

    Contested · 52/100
    Web Servers category →

    SWAG (Secure Web Application Gateway) is shipping code consistently, so a buyer comparing your product will find a maintained free option. Price and position against the total cost of self-hosting it, not against the paid incumbent's list price.

    Winnable, but differentiation is not optional. Pick one underserved segment and be visibly better for it rather than competing feature-for-feature with a free tool.

    SWAG (Secure Web Application Gateway): common questions

    Is SWAG (Secure Web Application Gateway) still maintained in 2026?

    Actively maintained. SWAG (Secure Web Application Gateway) recorded 112 commits over the last twelve months, with activity in 12 of those months and 30 commits in the last quarter. Last commit: 2026-08-15. Last release: 2026-08-15. Committed within the last 45 days.

    Can I use SWAG (Secure Web Application Gateway) commercially?

    SWAG (Secure Web Application Gateway) is published under GPL-3.0. Copyleft (GPL, AGPL, MPL): derivative work must stay open. AGPL also covers software offered over a network, which blocks most closed SaaS wrappers.

    How crowded is the Web Servers category?

    19 open-source implementations, 14 of them actively maintained, led by Caddy at 75k stars. Saturation score 52/100 — Contested. Several maintained alternatives exist, but no one owns the category.

    SWAG (Secure Web Application Gateway) alternatives in Web Servers

    Caddy

    Web Servers

    75k

    Powerful, enterprise-ready, open source web server with automatic HTTPS.

    Actively maintained
    Real momentum
    Apache-2.0

    NGINX

    Web Servers

    31k

    HTTP and reverse proxy server, mail proxy server, and generic TCP/UDP proxy server.

    Actively maintained
    Real momentum
    BSD-2-Clause

    Pangolin

    Web Servers

    22k

    Identity-aware tunneled reverse proxy with dashboard UI, access control, and WireGuard-based tunnels (alternative to Cloudflare Tunnel, Tailscale).

    Actively maintained
    Real momentum
    AGPL-3.0

    Competing with free? Check the market first.

    IdeaProof scores your idea against live competitors, market size and 1,000+ documented startup failures in about two minutes.