innernet vs Nebula
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?
innernet
Private network system using WireGuard
VS
Nebula
Scalable overlay networking tool from Slack
| Feature | innernet | Nebula |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Remote Access & VPN | Remote Access & VPN |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Language | Rust | Go |
| Setup difficulty | Hard | Hard |
| Min. RAM | 64 MB | 64 MB |
| Deployment | binary, bare-metal | binary, bare-metal |
| GitHub stars | ★ 5,520 | ★ 17,591 |
| First released | 2021 | 2019 |
| Replaces | Tailscale | Tailscale |
Why pick each one
Choose innernet if…
- Released under the MIT license
- Mature project with 5.5k GitHub stars
- Written in Rust
- Tiny footprint — runs in 64 MB RAM
Choose Nebula if…
- Released under the MIT license
- Mature project with 17.6k GitHub stars
- Written in Go
- Tiny footprint — runs in 64 MB RAM
Frequently asked questions
Is innernet or Nebula better?
Neither is universally better. Nebula has the larger community; both share a hard setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.
Are innernet and Nebula free and open-source?
Yes. innernet is licensed under MIT and Nebula under MIT. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run innernet and Nebula with Docker?
innernet: check the project docs for container support. Nebula: check the project docs for container support.