Chisel 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?
Chisel
Fast TCP/UDP tunnel over HTTP secured by SSH
VS
Headscale
Open-source self-hosted Tailscale control server
| Feature | Chisel | Headscale |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Remote Access & VPN | Remote Access & VPN |
| License | MIT | BSD-3-Clause |
| Language | Go | Go |
| Setup difficulty | Medium | Medium |
| Min. RAM | 64 MB | 128 MB |
| Deployment | binary, docker | docker, binary |
| GitHub stars | ★ 16,362 | ★ 42,612 |
| First released | 2015 | 2020 |
| Replaces | ngrok | Tailscale |
Why pick each one
Choose Chisel if…
- Released under the MIT license
- First-class Docker support for quick deployment
- Mature project with 16.4k GitHub stars
- Written in Go
Frequently asked questions
Is Chisel or Headscale better?
Neither is universally better. Headscale has the larger community; both share a medium setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.
Are Chisel and Headscale free and open-source?
Yes. Chisel is licensed under MIT and Headscale under BSD-3-Clause. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Chisel and Headscale with Docker?
Chisel: yes. Headscale: yes.