Mosh 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?
Mosh
Mobile shell with roaming and intermittent connectivity
VS
Nebula
Scalable overlay networking tool from Slack
| Feature | Mosh | Nebula |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Remote Access & VPN | Remote Access & VPN |
| License | GPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Language | C++ | Go |
| Setup difficulty | Easy | Hard |
| Min. RAM | 64 MB | 64 MB |
| Deployment | bare-metal, binary | binary, bare-metal |
| GitHub stars | ★ 14,307 | ★ 17,591 |
| First released | 2012 | 2019 |
| Replaces | SSH | Tailscale |
Why pick each one
Choose Mosh if…
- Released under the GPL-3.0 license
- Easy to set up — beginner-friendly
- Mature project with 14.3k 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 Mosh or Nebula better?
Neither is universally better. Nebula has the larger community, while Mosh is simpler to set up (easy difficulty). Choose based on the comparison table above and your own setup.
Are Mosh and Nebula free and open-source?
Yes. Mosh is licensed under GPL-3.0 and Nebula under MIT. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Mosh and Nebula with Docker?
Mosh: check the project docs for container support. Nebula: check the project docs for container support.