bore vs Headscale
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted remote access & vpn options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.
Not the right match-up?
bore
Modern, simple TCP tunnel in Rust
VS
Headscale
Open-source self-hosted Tailscale control server
| Feature | bore | Headscale |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Remote Access & VPN | Remote Access & VPN |
| License | MIT | BSD-3-Clause |
| Language | Rust | Go |
| Setup difficulty | Easy | Medium |
| Min. RAM | 64 MB | 128 MB |
| Deployment | binary, docker | docker, binary |
| GitHub stars | ★ 11,363 | ★ 42,612 |
| First released | 2022 | 2020 |
| Replaces | ngrok | Tailscale |
Why pick each one
Choose bore if…
- Released under the MIT license
- Easy to set up — beginner-friendly
- First-class Docker support for quick deployment
- Mature project with 11.4k GitHub stars
Frequently asked questions
Is bore or Headscale better?
Neither is universally better. Headscale has the larger community, while bore is simpler to set up (easy difficulty). Choose based on the comparison table above and your own setup.
Are bore and Headscale free and open-source?
Yes. bore is licensed under MIT and Headscale under BSD-3-Clause. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run bore and Headscale with Docker?
bore: yes. Headscale: yes.