Hacker News Reader

Hacker News

Comment by braginini | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

braginini

Try netbird which is an open-source alternative to free yourself from worries xD https://github.com/netbirdio/netbird

View on HN

I've always been on the outside looking in, so I've never used Tailscale or its open-source brethren.

Would this service be comparable to Headscale[0]?

[0] https://github.com/juanfont/headscale

Headscale is server only. Netbird is the whole stack (basically does the same thing but completely different software/implementation)

But the tailscale client is open source too

Doesn't that also then make tailscale completely open source?

What? The original coordination server, which is not running headscale, is closed source so yes, they are still a closed source company

No their "real" backend is proprietary. Headscale is a separate implementation that they also maintain. It's intended for self-hosting your individual Tailnet. I'm assuming if you tried to use it as a corporate VPN you would run into limitations.

Their clients for proprietary OSs are at least partly proprietary too.

To be honest I find this all a very reasonable set of compromises. It means I'm comfortable using their proprietary service without feeling like I'm getting locked into a completely closed ecosystem.

Not on Windows and iOS. And on the mac, the most useable client isn’t open source either.

I highly recommend netbird, after using it for two years. The whole stack can be self hosted is open source develop by an european based company.

I use personally for my home network. Very easy to use and quite mature. I'd highly recommend.

Thank you for sharing this link!

I was about to slog through AI search results looking for an alternative.

I've been tracking this space for a while just out of annoyance that Tailscale offers ssh on the free tier, then not on the "starter" paid tier. Netbird is by far the best of the alternatives that I've tried.

Their Personal Plus (the non-business "starter" plan) does offer SSH, FWIW.

Can you comment a bit on what you liked about them, especially compared to Tailscale?

Well, it's important to start with saying I didn't like it as much as Tailscale, but I liked it a lot more than any of the others I tried. The UI for their dashboard is very good and getting it up and running was pretty trouble free though the docs could be a little better.

Ah, that makes sense thank you!

Have you tried ZeroTier? Their free plan's been working well for me. I haven't tried NetBird.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com