SHSelfHostIndex

Remote Access & VPN

Reach your network securely with self-hosted VPN, mesh networking, and remote-desktop tools.

103 self-hosted apps · 257 comparisons

All remote access & vpn apps

Last reviewed Aug 26, 2026 · 452 words

Decide the direction of travel before comparing tools. Seeing one machine's screen, joining your whole network from anywhere, and exposing a single local service to the public internet are three separate problems, and everything in this category solves exactly one of them well.

How to choose a remote access tool

Screens first: RustDesk is the TeamViewer replacement, with 121,000 GitHub stars and an optional self-hosted relay server, while Sunshine streams desktops and games at low latency to Moonlight clients. Networks second: the mesh VPNs — Tailscale, NetBird, and Headscale — connect devices peer-to-peer over WireGuard, and WG-Easy offers the classic alternative, a single WireGuard hub with a web UI. Exposing services is the third job: frp and localtunnel forward traffic from a machine that already has a public address, which means renting a small VPS either way.

Two more axes split the network tools. Hub versus mesh: a hub routes everything through one server, which is simple to reason about but a single point of failure and a bandwidth ceiling; a mesh punches through NAT so devices talk directly. And control-plane ownership: Tailscale's coordination server is run by the company (the client is open source, BSD-3), while NetBird and Headscale let you self-host the whole thing — the trade-offs are laid out in Headscale vs Tailscale.

Where to start

Tailscale is the ten-minute answer: install the client on each device, sign in, and NAT traversal, encryption, and MagicDNS just work, on a free personal tier that covers a typical household. WG-Easy is the pick when you want nothing cloud-shaped in the loop: one Docker container on 128 MB, QR codes for phone enrollment, and plain WireGuard into your LAN — its one limit is a single WireGuard interface. RustDesk is the one to hand your family: clients for every platform, end-to-end encryption, and a relay you can self-host in a container once the free public infrastructure feels slow.

The tunnel tools assume a server you don't have yet

frp and localtunnel look free until you notice both need a public endpoint — a VPS at roughly $5 a month. If the thing you want to expose is a web app, a mesh VPN for private use or a reverse proxy on that same VPS for public use will serve you better than a raw TCP tunnel in most cases.

Default for a first-timer: Tailscale. It removes port forwarding, dynamic DNS, and firewall anxiety in one install, and if the hosted control plane ever bothers you, Headscale accepts the same official clients without reconfiguring your devices from scratch.

Curated picks

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Remote Access & VPN comparisons

257 head-to-head comparisons in this category.

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