Open Source Alternatives to Tailscale

A secure connectivity solution that enables peer-to-peer connections between devices, servers, and software. The product is designed for individuals, engineers, IT professionals, and security teams to manage connectivity across AI, IoT, and multi-cloud environments. It supports the deployment of users and groups via SCIM, integration with MDM tools, and the management of ephemeral resources such as Kubernetes pods and CI/CD runners. The platform provides tools for AI security, privileged access management, and just-in-time resource access. It is deployed as a network layer to connect critical infrastructure, including production clusters and on-premise databases. Users can manage access through ACL groups and utilize tagged resources for shared infrastructure like subnet routers and app connectors. The system is used to create secure tailnets for both home labs and large scale enterprise operations.

Whether you want to cut software costs or escape vendor lock-in, these open source alternatives to Tailscale give you an option you fully own. You can self-host them, so your data stays on infrastructure you control. This page lists 3 open source alternatives to Tailscale. The most popular are Netbird, Pangolin and Defguard. Most use the AGPL-3.0 or BSD-3-Clause license, and 3 offer an official Docker image.