Sunshine 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?
Sunshine
Self-hosted game-stream host for Moonlight clients
VS
Nebula
Scalable overlay networking tool from Slack
| Feature | Sunshine | Nebula |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Remote Access & VPN | Remote Access & VPN |
| License | GPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Language | C++ | Go |
| Setup difficulty | Medium | Hard |
| Min. RAM | 512 MB | 64 MB |
| Deployment | docker, binary | binary, bare-metal |
| GitHub stars | ★ 39,962 | ★ 17,591 |
| First released | 2020 | 2019 |
| Replaces | NVIDIA GameStream, Parsec | Tailscale |
Why pick each one
Choose Sunshine if…
- Released under the GPL-3.0 license
- First-class Docker support for quick deployment
- Mature project with 40k GitHub stars
- Written in C++
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 Sunshine or Nebula better?
Sunshine is the stronger all-round pick: it has both the larger community and the simpler medium setup. Consider Nebula if its specific feature set fits your needs better.
Are Sunshine and Nebula free and open-source?
Yes. Sunshine is licensed under GPL-3.0 and Nebula under MIT. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Sunshine and Nebula with Docker?
Sunshine: yes. Nebula: check the project docs for container support.