noVNC vs rathole
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?
noVNC
VNC client that runs entirely in the browser
VS
rathole
Lightweight and high-performance reverse proxy for NAT traversal
| Feature | noVNC | rathole |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Remote Access & VPN | Remote Access & VPN |
| License | MPL-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Language | JavaScript | Rust |
| Setup difficulty | Easy | Medium |
| Min. RAM | 64 MB | 64 MB |
| Deployment | bare-metal, docker, source | binary, docker |
| GitHub stars | ★ 13,911 | ★ 13,999 |
| First released | 2010 | 2021 |
| Replaces | RealVNC | ngrok, frp |
Why pick each one
Choose noVNC if…
- Released under the MPL-2.0 license
- Easy to set up — beginner-friendly
- First-class Docker support for quick deployment
- Mature project with 13.9k GitHub stars
Choose rathole if…
- Released under the Apache-2.0 license
- First-class Docker support for quick deployment
- Mature project with 14k GitHub stars
- Written in Rust
Frequently asked questions
Is noVNC or rathole better?
Neither is universally better. rathole has the larger community, while noVNC is simpler to set up (easy difficulty). Choose based on the comparison table above and your own setup.
Are noVNC and rathole free and open-source?
Yes. noVNC is licensed under MPL-2.0 and rathole under Apache-2.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run noVNC and rathole with Docker?
noVNC: yes. rathole: yes.