Headscale vs WG-Easy
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 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 WG-Easy with
choose an app… RustDesk frp Sunshine Tailscale JumpServer Algo VPN NetBird 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 WireGuard UI 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 WG-Easy Category Remote Access & VPN Remote Access & VPN License BSD-3-Clause AGPL-3.0 Language Go TypeScript Setup difficulty Medium Easy Min. RAM 128 MB 128 MB Deployment docker, binary docker GitHub stars ★ 42,612 ★ 26,595 First released 2020 2021 Replaces Tailscale OpenVPN Access Server
Frequently asked questions Is Headscale or WG-Easy better? Neither is universally better. Headscale has the larger community, while WG-Easy is simpler to set up (easy difficulty). Choose based on the comparison table above and your own setup.
Are Headscale and WG-Easy free and open-source? Yes. Headscale is licensed under BSD-3-Clause and WG-Easy under AGPL-3.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Headscale and WG-Easy with Docker? Headscale: yes. WG-Easy: yes.