Infrastructure & ops · Updated October 2026
Tailscale is a mesh VPN that connects your devices over WireGuard. If you would rather own your tools, here are 4 open source alternatives to Tailscale, ranked by GitHub stars. Each one is free to use under its license, and you can read, change, and often self-host the code.
The most popular is Headscale with 44.8k stars, and the most recently updated is NetBird, with a commit on Oct 21, 2026.
by juanfont
An open source, self-hosted implementation of the Tailscale control server
by netbirdio
NetBird securely connects people, machines and AI agents across any network with one identity-based Zero Trust platform. Powered by peer-to-peer WireGuard®
by fosrl
Modern networking and security platform providing secure access and connectivity to apps, infrastructure, and AI workloads. Connect and protect your users.
by firezone
Blazing-fast remote access
By GitHub stars, Headscale is the most popular open source alternative to Tailscale right now, with 44.8k stars, followed by NetBird and Pangolin. The best fit depends on your setup, so compare their licenses, languages, and recent activity in the table above.
Yes. All 4 projects on this page are open source, so the software itself is free to use, study, and change. Some of them also sell a hosted version or paid support.
NetBird (last commit Oct 21, 2026), Pangolin (last commit Oct 21, 2026), and Firezone (last commit Oct 21, 2026) have the most recent commits. Licenses on this list include BSD-3-Clause and Apache-2.0.
Headscale
NetBird
Pangolin
Firezone