FreeRDP vs Nebula
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?
FreeRDP
Free implementation of the Remote Desktop Protocol
VS
Nebula
Scalable overlay networking tool from Slack
| Feature | FreeRDP | Nebula |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Remote Access & VPN | Remote Access & VPN |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Language | C | Go |
| Setup difficulty | Medium | Hard |
| Min. RAM | 128 MB | 64 MB |
| Deployment | bare-metal, source | binary, bare-metal |
| GitHub stars | ★ 13,527 | ★ 17,591 |
| First released | 2009 | 2019 |
| Replaces | Microsoft RDP | Tailscale |
Why pick each one
Choose Nebula if…
- Released under the MIT license
- Mature project with 17.6k GitHub stars
- Written in Go
- Tiny footprint — runs in 64 MB RAM
Frequently asked questions
Is FreeRDP or Nebula better?
Neither is universally better. Nebula has the larger community, while FreeRDP is simpler to set up (medium difficulty). Choose based on the comparison table above and your own setup.
Are FreeRDP and Nebula free and open-source?
Yes. FreeRDP is licensed under Apache-2.0 and Nebula under MIT. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run FreeRDP and Nebula with Docker?
FreeRDP: check the project docs for container support. Nebula: check the project docs for container support.