Headscale vs JumpServer
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 Headscale with
choose an app… RustDesk frp Sunshine Tailscale 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
Compare JumpServer with
choose an app… RustDesk frp Sunshine Tailscale 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 Boundary 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 Headscale JumpServer Category Remote Access & VPN Remote Access & VPN License BSD-3-Clause GPL-3.0 Language Go Python Setup difficulty Medium Medium Min. RAM 128 MB 4,096 MB Deployment docker, binary docker, kubernetes GitHub stars ★ 42,612 ★ 31,230 First released 2020 2014 Replaces Tailscale CyberArk, Teleport
Why pick each one
Choose JumpServer if… Released under the GPL-3.0 license First-class Docker support for quick deployment Kubernetes-ready with Helm charts available Mature project with 31.2k GitHub stars JumpServer details
Frequently asked questions Is Headscale or JumpServer 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 Headscale and JumpServer free and open-source? Yes. Headscale is licensed under BSD-3-Clause and JumpServer under GPL-3.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Headscale and JumpServer with Docker? Headscale: yes. JumpServer: yes.