Headscale vs Tailscale
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 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
Compare Tailscale with
choose an app… RustDesk frp Sunshine 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 Headscale Tailscale Category Remote Access & VPN Remote Access & VPN License BSD-3-Clause BSD-3-Clause Language Go Go Setup difficulty Medium Easy Min. RAM 128 MB 64 MB Deployment docker, binary binary, bare-metal GitHub stars ★ 42,612 ★ 34,934 First released 2020 2019 Replaces Tailscale ZeroTier
Why pick each one
Choose Tailscale if… Released under the BSD-3-Clause license Easy to set up — beginner-friendly Mature project with 34.9k GitHub stars Written in Go Tailscale details
Frequently asked questions Is Headscale or Tailscale better? Neither is universally better. Headscale has the larger community, while Tailscale is simpler to set up (easy difficulty). Choose based on the comparison table above and your own setup.
Are Headscale and Tailscale free and open-source? Yes. Headscale is licensed under BSD-3-Clause and Tailscale under BSD-3-Clause. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Headscale and Tailscale with Docker? Headscale: yes. Tailscale: check the project docs for container support.