Softwr

Cloud · head to head

Caddy vs Timeplus

Caddy logo

Caddy

Cloud

Web server with automatic HTTPS by default

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
Timeplus logo

Timeplus

Databases

Streaming SQL engine built on ClickHouse internals, shipping as one small binary

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Each has a real cost: Caddy smaller ecosystem than Nginx, so third-party guides and modules are fewer; Timeplus proton, the free version, is single-node by design, so any requirement for high availability or horizontal scale forces the commercial licence; the open source edition is a trial in practical terms.
  • They diverge on capability: Caddy covers Automatic HTTPS, Timeplus covers Streaming SQL.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Caddy and Timeplus actually diverge.

Attributes where Caddy and Timeplus differ
AttributeCaddyTimeplus
Pricing modelOpen source, no licence feePer month for cloud, quoted for self-hosted
PlatformsLinux, macOS, Windows, DockerLinux, macOS, Docker, Kubernetes, Web
CategoryCloudDatabases

Identical on both: starting price (Free), free tier (Yes), user rating (Not yet rated).

What each one covers

Drawn from each product's published feature list. An absence here means we hold no record of it - not that the product lacks it.

Only in Caddy

  • Automatic HTTPS
  • Caddyfile
  • Reverse proxy
  • Single binary

Only in Timeplus

  • Streaming SQL
  • Unified streaming and historical
  • ClickHouse-based engine
  • Single binary deployment
  • External streams
  • Materialised views

What people use each for

The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.

Caddy

  • Sites and services where expired certificates have caused outages beforenot Timeplus
  • Small deployments where Nginx configuration is more effort than the problem warrantsnot Timeplus
  • Reverse proxying internal services with TLS without a certificate workflownot Timeplus

Timeplus

  • Real-time alerting on Kafka topics where standing up a Flink cluster is more work than the use case justifiesnot Caddy
  • Fraud or anomaly detection that must join a live event stream against recent history in one querynot Caddy
  • Streaming ETL from Kafka or MySQL change data capture into ClickHouse without writing Javanot Caddy
  • A small data team that needs continuous aggregation but has no platform engineers to operate JVM infrastructurenot Caddy

Where each one falls short

Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.

Caddy

  • Smaller ecosystem than Nginx, so third-party guides and modules are fewer
  • Adding plugins means rebuilding the binary rather than loading a module
  • Under very high throughput Nginx generally still benchmarks ahead
  • Automatic certificate issuance needs outbound internet access, which complicates air-gapped deployments

Timeplus

  • Proton, the free version, is single-node by design, so any requirement for high availability or horizontal scale forces the commercial licence; the open source edition is a trial in practical terms.
  • It is a young project against Apache Flink’s decade of production history, so the hiring pool, the connector library and the body of known failure modes are all much smaller.
  • Inheriting ClickHouse internals also inherits ClickHouse constraints: memory-hungry queries, awkward updates and a SQL dialect that is not portable to other engines.
  • Exactly-once semantics and state recovery guarantees are less battle-tested than Flink checkpointing, which matters if the pipeline moves money.
  • Cloud pricing is by provisioned instance size rather than usage, so a bursty workload pays for peak capacity around the clock or has to be resized by hand.

Pricing, plan by plan

Caddy

Free
  • CaddyFree
    • Full functionality
    • Commercial use permitted
    • Community support

Timeplus

Free
  • Timeplus ProtonFree
    • Apache 2.0 licence
    • Single node only
    • Full streaming SQL engine
  • Timeplus Cloud$199/month
    • One to thirty-two CPUs
    • 4 GB to 128 GB memory
    • From 250 GB SSD storage
  • Self-hosted or BYOC$undefined/year
    • Multi-node clustering
    • Kubernetes or bare metal
    • Customisable compute and storage

Which should you pick?

Choose Caddy if

  • You need automatic https.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on Linux, macOS, Windows, Docker.
  • You also want caddyfile.
Caddy review

Choose Timeplus if

  • You need streaming sql.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on Linux, macOS, Docker, Kubernetes, Web.
  • You also want unified streaming and historical.
Timeplus review

Questions people ask

Is Caddy or Timeplus better?
Neither clearly leads. Caddy starts at Free and Timeplus at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Caddy or Timeplus?
Caddy starts at Free and Timeplus at Free.
Does Caddy or Timeplus run on more platforms?
Caddy runs on Linux, macOS, Windows, Docker. Timeplus runs on Linux, macOS, Docker, Kubernetes, Web.
Can I use Caddy for free?
Both have a free tier, so you can try either at no cost before committing.
What is Caddy best used for?
Caddy is most often used for sites and services where expired certificates have caused outages before, small deployments where nginx configuration is more effort than the problem warrants, reverse proxying internal services with tls without a certificate workflow. Of those, sites and services where expired certificates have caused outages before and small deployments where nginx configuration is more effort than the problem warrants are not what Timeplus is typically brought in for.
What can Caddy do that Timeplus cannot?
Caddy covers Automatic HTTPS, Caddyfile, Reverse proxy, Single binary. Timeplus covers Streaming SQL, Unified streaming and historical, ClickHouse-based engine, Single binary deployment.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Caddy: Is Caddy free?

Yes, open source under the Apache 2.0 licence, free for commercial use.

Timeplus: Is Timeplus open source?

The core engine, Timeplus Proton, is Apache 2.0. Timeplus Enterprise and Cloud are commercial.

Caddy: What does automatic HTTPS mean?

Caddy obtains certificates from Let’s Encrypt or ZeroSSL on first request and renews them before expiry, with no cron job or configuration.

Timeplus: What is the difference from Flink?

Timeplus is one binary with SQL as the only interface; Flink is a JVM cluster with a Java and SQL API and far more operational surface.

Caddy: Caddy or Nginx?

Caddy is dramatically simpler to configure and removes certificate management. Nginx has the larger ecosystem and better peak throughput.

Timeplus: Can Proton run in production?

It can, but it is single-node only, so there is no high availability without the commercial edition.

Timeplus: How much is the cloud?

From 199 US dollars a month, sized by CPU and memory, with a fourteen day trial.

Share

Related pages

More on Caddy

More on Timeplus

Keep looking

Other head to heads