Compare — choosing a core

The three cores cover overlapping feature sets but with very different design philosophies. This page summarizes the differences in a single place so you can pick the right tool and migrate between them.

Feature support at a glance

Feature	Xray-core	sing-box	mihomo
Config format	JSON	JSON	YAML
VLESS	✓	✓	✓
VMess	✓ (AEAD only)	✓	✓
Trojan	✓ (no flow)	✓	✓
Shadowsocks (incl. 2022)	✓	✓	✓
ShadowsocksR	—	—	✓
Hysteria2	✓ (split config)	✓	✓
TUIC	—	✓ (v5)	✓ (v4 + v5)
WireGuard	outbound	endpoint	outbound
Naive	—	✓	—
AnyTLS	—	✓	✓
SSH	—	✓	✓
Tor	—	✓	—
Snell	—	✓ (v4–v6)	✓ (v1–v5)
OpenVPN	—	endpoint	outbound
HTTP / SOCKS	✓	✓ (incl. mixed)	✓ (incl. mixed)
Dokodemo / port-forward	dedicated	via Direct	dedicated
TUN inbound	minimal	full	full
Redirect / TProxy	dokodemo + sockopt	dedicated	shortcut + listener
TLS / uTLS / REALITY / ECH	✓	✓	✓
Routing	JSON rules + balancer	structured rules + actions	compact strings
DNS	server URL list	typed servers	URL list + policy map
Rule providers	— (built-in geo only)	rule-set	rule-providers
Proxy groups	balancer (4 strategies)	selector / urltest	select / url-test / fallback / load-balance
Stats / Prometheus	gRPC + metrics	clash_api + v2ray_api + api service	Clash API

Field-name divergences (the same feature, three names)

VLESS / VMess user list

Concept	Xray	sing-box	mihomo
User UUID field	clients[].id	users[].uuid	uuid
User name field	clients[].email	users[].name	username
Per-user flow	clients[].flow	users[].flow	flow

Shadowsocks cipher

• Xray / sing-box: method
• mihomo: cipher

Server / port pair

• Xray inbounds: listen + port
• Xray outbounds: address + port (simplified) or servers[].address + servers[].port
• sing-box inbounds: listen + listen_port
• sing-box outbounds: server + server_port
• mihomo: listen + port (inbound listener) / server + port (outbound)

Skip cert verify

• Xray: tlsSettings.allowInsecure
• sing-box: tls.insecure
• mihomo: per-adapter skip-cert-verify

uTLS fingerprint

• Xray: tlsSettings.fingerprint
• sing-box: tls.utls: { enabled, fingerprint }
• mihomo: per-adapter client-fingerprint (or top-level global-client-fingerprint)

Multiplex (mux)

• Xray: streamSettings.sockopt (limited)
• sing-box: multiplex: { ... } on inbound/outbound
• mihomo: mux-option on inbound listener (sing-style mux)

Migration cookbook

From Xray VLESS to sing-box VLESS

Xray:

{
  "outbounds": [{
    "protocol": "vless",
    "settings": {
      "vnext": [{
        "address": "example.com",
        "port": 443,
        "users": [{ "id": "abc...", "flow": "xtls-rprx-vision" }]
      }]
    },
    "streamSettings": {
      "security": "reality",
      "realitySettings": { "publicKey": "...", "shortId": "...", "serverName": "cdn.com" }
    }
  }]
}

sing-box equivalent:

{
  "outbounds": [{
    "type": "vless",
    "server": "example.com",
    "server_port": 443,
    "uuid": "abc...",
    "flow": "xtls-rprx-vision",
    "tls": {
      "enabled": true,
      "server_name": "cdn.com",
      "utls": { "enabled": true, "fingerprint": "chrome" },
      "reality": { "enabled": true, "public_key": "...", "short_id": "..." }
    }
  }]
}

Key differences:

• clients[].id → users[].uuid on inbound; outbound uses flat uuid.
• streamSettings.realitySettings → tls.reality sub-block.
• streamSettings.security: "reality" → tls.enabled: true plus tls.reality.enabled: true.
• Xray's implicit chrome fingerprint becomes explicit tls.utls: { enabled, fingerprint }.

From sing-box to mihomo (same VLESS)

proxies:
  - name: vless-reality
    type: vless
    server: example.com
    port: 443
    uuid: abc...
    flow: xtls-rprx-vision
    tls: true
    servername: cdn.com
    client-fingerprint: chrome
    reality-opts:
      public-key: ...
      short-id: ...

Key differences:

• All TLS fields move to the proxy root (tls, servername, client-fingerprint). No nested tls: block.
• reality: becomes reality-opts:.

From Hysteria2 (Xray's split form) to sing-box

Xray splits the config; sing-box keeps everything in one block:

# Xray (split across blocks)
outbounds:
  - protocol: hysteria
    settings: { version: 2, address: example.com, port: 443 }
    streamSettings:
      hysteriaSettings: { version: 2, auth: pw }
      finalmask:
        quicParams: { brutalUp: 100mbps, brutalDown: 300mbps }

// sing-box (one block, integer Mbps)
{
  "type": "hysteria2",
  "server": "example.com",
  "server_port": 443,
  "password": "pw",
  "up_mbps": 100,
  "down_mbps": 300,
  "tls": { "enabled": true }
}

Routing rules

Xray (JSON):

{ "type": "field", "domain": ["geosite:cn"], "outboundTag": "direct" }

sing-box (JSON):

{ "rule_set": ["geosite-cn"], "outbound": "direct" }

mihomo (string):

GEOSITE,cn,DIRECT