description: How Corvus compares to Nginx Proxy Manager (NPM): what works the same, what Corvus adds (WAF, auto-bans, rate limits, access queue, traffic monitor) and where NPM is still ahead.¶
Corvus vs Nginx Proxy Manager¶
Corvus is built for people who like how simple Nginx Proxy Manager (NPM) is, but also want to see and control the traffic that reaches their services. It is not an NPM fork. The everyday workflow is the same: add a domain, pick the target, request a certificate. Corvus adds the protection and monitoring layer in the same console.
Side by side¶
| NPM | Corvus | |
|---|---|---|
| Proxy hosts, custom locations, redirections, TCP/UDP streams | ✅ | ✅ |
| Let's Encrypt with auto-renewal | ✅ | ✅ |
| Wildcard certificates (DNS challenge) | ✅ many DNS providers | ✅ 7 providers (Cloudflare, DigitalOcean, DuckDNS, Gandi, GoDaddy, Hetzner, Namecheap), saved and shared between certificates |
| Password protection (Basic auth) and IP access lists | ✅ Access lists | ✅ Password protection and security rules |
| Custom nginx configuration per host | ✅ | ✅ |
| Answer for unknown hosts (404, close, redirect) | ✅ Default site | ✅ Unknown hosts |
| Blocking of common exploit paths | ✅ on/off switch | ✅ on by default, with categories and logs |
| Automatic bans for IPs that keep attacking | ❌ (add CrowdSec or fail2ban) | ✅ built in |
| Rules on IP, country, path, header, User-Agent | ❌ | ✅ Security rules, with a Log mode to test them first |
| Rate limits | ❌ (custom config) | ✅ per host |
| Browser challenge and automatic "under attack" mode | ❌ | ✅ built in, no third-party service |
| Access queue (waiting room) for traffic spikes | ❌ | ✅ built in |
| Live traffic monitor and request logs | ❌ (access log files) | ✅ per host |
| Alerts (Slack, Discord, Teams, Telegram, …) | ❌ | ✅ built in |
| Configuration versions and rollback | ❌ | ✅ every change is tested with openresty -t and versioned |
| Users and roles | ✅ | ✅ admin / operator / viewer, SSO (OIDC), API tokens, audit log |
| Backups | manual (copy the data folder) | ✅ download and restore in the console |
| Database | SQLite, MySQL/MariaDB, PostgreSQL | SQLite (default) or PostgreSQL |
Compared with NPM at the time of writing; NPM may have added features since.
Where NPM is still ahead¶
- More DNS providers for wildcard certificates. If yours is not in the Corvus list, use HTTP validation or a custom certificate.
- A much longer track record and a large community. Corvus is young (1.x).
- Smaller footprint. Corvus also runs a traffic collector and the access-queue store, so it uses more memory than NPM (see Performance).
Moving from NPM¶
Import from NPM reads your NPM setup (proxy hosts, redirections, streams, certificates, access lists) without changing anything in NPM, so you can always go back. See Migrate from NPM.