Headscale vs localtunnel
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 JumpServer Algo VPN NetBird WG-Easy 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 localtunnel with
choose an app… RustDesk frp Sunshine Tailscale NPS JumpServer Algo VPN NetBird WG-Easy 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
Feature Headscale localtunnel Category Remote Access & VPN Remote Access & VPN License BSD-3-Clause MIT Language Go JavaScript Setup difficulty Medium Easy Min. RAM 128 MB 128 MB Deployment docker, binary docker, binary GitHub stars ★ 42,612 ★ 22,440 First released 2020 2015 Replaces Tailscale ngrok
Why pick each one
Choose localtunnel if… Released under the MIT license Easy to set up — beginner-friendly First-class Docker support for quick deployment Mature project with 22.4k GitHub stars localtunnel details
Frequently asked questions Is Headscale or localtunnel better? Neither is universally better. Headscale has the larger community, while localtunnel is simpler to set up (easy difficulty). Choose based on the comparison table above and your own setup.
Are Headscale and localtunnel free and open-source? Yes. Headscale is licensed under BSD-3-Clause and localtunnel under MIT. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Headscale and localtunnel with Docker? Headscale: yes. localtunnel: yes.