frp 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?
Compare frp with
choose an app… RustDesk Sunshine Tailscale NPS JumpServer Algo VPN NetBird WG-Easy localtunnel Neko Teleport GoTTY Moonlight Nebula ZeroTier Chisel Cockpit Termix OpenVPN Mosh rathole noVNC FreeRDP SoftEther VPN EasyTier ttyd Netmaker Sliver bore Apollo RustDesk Server Docker OpenVPN Firezone sshx Warpgate TigerVNC GOST MeshCentral n2n wstunnel Outline Server Webmin Next Terminal innernet Wetty KasmVNC WebSSH Remotely Pritunl Wirehole Nexterm zrok expose websockify Tactical RMM OpenZiti Webtop WireGuard Apache Guacamole Eternal Terminal pgrok Bastillion Sshwifty Shell In A Box strongSwan Xpra Headplane Defguard WebSSH2 Snowflake SSH Client tinc Games on Whales ShellHub Selkies Aspia tunnelmole ztncui Subspace frp-panel WireGuard Portal wayvnc PyRDP docker-baseimage-gui trzsz boringproxy SSHPiper Upterm Kasm Workspaces Headscale-Admin Wesher x11vnc Neko Rooms CloudTTY OpenConnect Server Apache Guacamole Lite gTunnel X2Go Guacozy Engity's Bifröst Cardea RPort Neutrinet SparkView
Compare Headscale with
choose an app… RustDesk Sunshine Tailscale JumpServer Algo VPN NetBird WG-Easy localtunnel Neko Teleport GoTTY Moonlight Nebula ZeroTier Chisel Cockpit Termix OpenVPN Mosh rathole noVNC FreeRDP SoftEther VPN EasyTier ttyd Netmaker Sliver bore Apollo RustDesk Server Docker OpenVPN Firezone sshx Warpgate TigerVNC GOST MeshCentral n2n wstunnel Outline Server Webmin Next Terminal innernet Wetty KasmVNC WebSSH Remotely Pritunl Wirehole Nexterm zrok expose websockify Tactical RMM OpenZiti Webtop WireGuard Apache Guacamole Eternal Terminal pgrok Bastillion Sshwifty Shell In A Box strongSwan Xpra Headplane Defguard WebSSH2 Snowflake SSH Client tinc Games on Whales ShellHub Selkies Aspia tunnelmole ztncui Subspace WireGuard Portal wayvnc PyRDP docker-baseimage-gui trzsz boringproxy SSHPiper Upterm Kasm Workspaces Headscale-Admin Wesher x11vnc Neko Rooms CloudTTY OpenConnect Server Apache Guacamole Lite gTunnel X2Go Guacozy Engity's Bifröst Cardea RPort Neutrinet SparkView
Feature frp Headscale Category Remote Access & VPN Remote Access & VPN License Apache-2.0 BSD-3-Clause Language Go Go Setup difficulty Medium Medium Min. RAM 64 MB 128 MB Deployment binary, docker docker, binary GitHub stars ★ 108,622 ★ 42,612 First released 2016 2020 Replaces ngrok Tailscale
Why pick each one
Choose frp if… Released under the Apache-2.0 license First-class Docker support for quick deployment Mature project with 108.6k GitHub stars Written in Go frp details
Frequently asked questions Is frp or Headscale better? Neither is universally better. frp has the larger community; both share a medium setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.
Are frp and Headscale free and open-source? Yes. frp is licensed under Apache-2.0 and Headscale under BSD-3-Clause. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run frp and Headscale with Docker? frp: yes. Headscale: yes.