SHSelfHostIndex

Nebula vs RustDesk

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?
NE Nebula Scalable overlay networking tool from Slack VS RU RustDesk Open-source remote desktop alternative to TeamViewer
FeatureNebulaRustDesk
CategoryRemote Access & VPNRemote Access & VPN
LicenseMITAGPL-3.0
LanguageGoRust
Setup difficultyHardEasy
Min. RAM64 MB256 MB
Deploymentbinary, bare-metaldocker, binary
GitHub stars★ 17,591★ 119,867
First released20192021
ReplacesTailscaleTeamViewer, AnyDesk

Why pick each one

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
Nebula details

Choose RustDesk if…

  • Easy self-hosted server
  • Works everywhere
RustDesk details

Frequently asked questions

Is Nebula or RustDesk better?

RustDesk is the stronger all-round pick: it has both the larger community and the simpler easy setup. Consider Nebula if its specific feature set fits your needs better.

Are Nebula and RustDesk free and open-source?

Yes. Nebula is licensed under MIT and RustDesk under AGPL-3.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.

Can I run Nebula and RustDesk with Docker?

Nebula: check the project docs for container support. RustDesk: yes.

Related comparisons