GOST 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?
GOST
Versatile secure tunneling and proxy toolkit
VS
Headscale
Open-source self-hosted Tailscale control server
| Feature | GOST | 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 | ★ 7,255 | ★ 42,612 |
| First released | 2017 | 2020 |
| Replaces | Chisel, ngrok | Tailscale |
Why pick each one
Choose GOST if…
- Released under the MIT license
- First-class Docker support for quick deployment
- Mature project with 7.3k GitHub stars
- Written in Go
Frequently asked questions
Is GOST 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 GOST and Headscale free and open-source?
Yes. GOST is licensed under MIT and Headscale under BSD-3-Clause. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run GOST and Headscale with Docker?
GOST: yes. Headscale: yes.