strongSwan vs Teleport
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted remote access & vpn options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.
Teleport
Identity-aware access for infrastructure
| Feature | strongSwan | Teleport |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Read-the-docs project | Under-an-hour setup |
| Health score | 87 · Excellent | 96 · Excellent |
| Category | Remote Access & VPN | Remote Access & VPN |
| License | GPL-2.0 | AGPL-3.0 |
| Language | C | Go |
| Setup difficulty | Hard | Hard |
| Min. RAM | 128 MB | 1,024 MB |
| Deployment | bare-metal, binary | docker, kubernetes, binary |
| GitHub stars | ★ 2,987 | ★ 20,936 |
| First released | 2005 | 2016 |
| Replaces | Cisco AnyConnect | Cisco AnyConnect, AWS Systems Manager |
What are strongSwan and Teleport?
strongSwan
strongSwan is a complete IPsec implementation for Linux and other platforms supporting IKEv1 and IKEv2 key exchange. It is widely used for site-to-site and remote access VPNs.
- Full IPsec implementation
- IKEv1 and IKEv2 support
- Certificate-based auth
- Cross-platform
Teleport
Teleport is an open-source access platform that provides secure, identity-aware connectivity to SSH servers, Kubernetes clusters, databases, and web apps. It records sessions and enforces RBAC.
- SSH, Kubernetes, and DB access
- Session recording
- Identity-based RBAC
- Certificate-based auth
strongSwan vs Teleport: key differences
StrongSwan is written in C, while Teleport is built with Go. Licensing differs — GPL-2.0 for strongSwan versus AGPL-3.0 for Teleport. StrongSwan is the lighter option, starting around 128 MB of RAM against 1,024 MB for Teleport. StrongSwan is the more established project (first released 2005), while Teleport arrived in 2016. Teleport has the considerably larger community, at 20,936 GitHub stars versus 2,987. Teleport lists first-class Docker deployment; strongSwan does not.
Why pick each one
Choose strongSwan if…
- Released under the GPL-2.0 license
- Active community (3k GitHub stars)
- Written in C
- Tiny footprint — runs in 128 MB RAM
Choose Teleport if…
- Session recording and audit
- Covers SSH to databases
- Strong RBAC controls
Watch out for
- Complex to operate
- Some features enterprise
Frequently asked questions
Is strongSwan or Teleport better?
Neither is universally better. Teleport has the larger community; both share a hard setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.
Are strongSwan and Teleport free and open-source?
Yes. strongSwan is licensed under GPL-2.0 and Teleport under AGPL-3.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run strongSwan and Teleport with Docker?
strongSwan: check the project docs for container support. Teleport: yes.
Which is lighter on resources, strongSwan or Teleport?
strongSwan has the smaller minimum footprint at 128 MB of RAM, compared to about 1,024 MB for Teleport. Real-world usage depends on library size, user count, and enabled features.