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stunnel vs Nginx: catalog facts
stunnel	Nginx
Free Free under the GPL 2.0 or later, with paid commercial support and non-GPL licences…	Free Nginx open source is free. Nginx Plus is a paid subscription.
Windows, Linux, Command line	Windows, macOS, Linux, Self-hosted
Adds TLS to existing programs without code changes Supports load balancing for larger deployments	Event-driven model handles large numbers of idle connections cheaply One binary covers static serving, reverse proxying, caching and load balancing
Configured through text files, with no graphical setup Not a community project; development is controlled by the author	Dynamic modules must usually be compiled in Several load-balancing and monitoring features are exclusive to the paid Nginx Plus
Downloadable app	Self-hosted
Open source	Open source
License: GPL-2.0-or-later	License: BSD-2-Clause
No account needed	Not stated if an account is needed
Not stated if it works offline	Not stated if it works offline
Official website Full listing and sources Checked October 2, 2026	Official website Full listing and sources Checked September 22, 2026

Catalog facts only. Anything “not stated” is unconfirmed. Check full listings for details.