---
title: Alternatives
description: Battle-tested open-source options.
---

L7 isn't the right fit for everyone, and we'd rather say that here than have you find out the hard way. If you're building on an open-source stack and can afford to own the routing 7 layer yourself, the projects below are free, battle-tested in production at serious scale, and a solid foundation to build on.

- **[NGINX](https://nginx.org/)** — the reverse proxy most of the internet already runs on. Mature, extensively documented, and a reasonable default if you don't need anything Punkolink adds on top.
- **[Pingora](https://github.com/cloudflare/pingora)** — the Rust proxy framework Punkolink itself is built on. Cloudflare open-sourced it after running it at their edge; if you want the same foundation without the product wrapped around it, it's right there.

If you start on one of these and outgrow it, or just want someone else on call for the routing layer, that's the conversation [Contact Sales](index.html#contact) is for.