SHSelfHostIndex

Firezone vs NetBird

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?
FI Firezone Open-source secure remote access platform VS NE NetBird Connect devices into a secure WireGuard-based overlay network
FeatureFirezoneNetBird
CategoryRemote Access & VPNRemote Access & VPN
LicenseApache-2.0BSD-3-Clause
LanguageElixirGo
Setup difficultyMediumMedium
Min. RAM1,024 MB256 MB
Deploymentdocker, bare-metaldocker, kubernetes, binary
GitHub stars★ 8,993★ 28,139
First released20212021
ReplacesCisco AnyConnect, TailscaleTailscale, ZeroTier

Why pick each one

Choose Firezone if…

  • Released under the Apache-2.0 license
  • First-class Docker support for quick deployment
  • Mature project with 9k GitHub stars
  • Written in Elixir
Firezone details

Choose NetBird if…

  • Released under the BSD-3-Clause license
  • First-class Docker support for quick deployment
  • Kubernetes-ready with Helm charts available
  • Mature project with 28.1k GitHub stars
NetBird details

Frequently asked questions

Is Firezone or NetBird better?

Neither is universally better. NetBird has the larger community; both share a medium setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.

Are Firezone and NetBird free and open-source?

Yes. Firezone is licensed under Apache-2.0 and NetBird under BSD-3-Clause. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.

Can I run Firezone and NetBird with Docker?

Firezone: yes. NetBird: yes.

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