head to head · open source
Tailscale vs FireZone
Tailscale has 38,534 GitHub stars, 3,411 forks, 4,569 open issues and last shipped yesterday. FireZone has 9,158 stars, 466 forks, 412 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Tailscale leads on adoption by 321% (38,534 vs 9,158 stars). Tailscale is written in Go under BSD-3-Clause; FireZone is written in Elixir under Apache-2.0. Tailscale has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, FireZone 5%. FireZone was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
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Side by side
| Tailscale | FireZone | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 39K | ★ 9.2K |
| License | BSD-3-Clause | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | Elixir |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.4K | ⑂ 466 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Tailscale if
- You weight community size — 39K stars and counting
- You want the BSD-3-Clause license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick FireZone if
- You want the FireZone feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Elixir
- You evaluated both and FireZone fits your workflow better
About Tailscale
Tailscale Private WireGuard® networks made easy Overview This repository contains the majority of Tailscale's open source code. Notably, it includes the tailscaled daemon and the tailscale CLI tool. The tailscaled daemon runs on Linux, Windows, macOS, and to varying degrees on FreeBSD and OpenBSD. The Tailscale iOS and Android apps use this repo's code, but this repo doesn't contain the mobile GUI code. Other Tailscale repos of note: the Android app is at the Synology package is at the QNAP package is at the Chocolatey packaging is at For background on which parts of Tailscale are open source and why, see Using…
read the full Tailscale overview →
About FireZone
Blazing fast remote access with identity based policies, attested device trust, and detailed audit logs Documentation Quickstart Download Clients Support Overview Firezone is a secure remote access platform built on WireGuard®. Connect users to private applications, databases, servers, and subnets with granular policies that define who can access each Resource and under what conditions. Combine identity based access with cryptographic device verification and detailed audit records. Gateways run in your infrastructure, and the full product source is available for inspection in this repository. Getting Started…
read the full FireZone overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Tailscale or FireZone more popular?
Tailscale has 38,534 GitHub stars and FireZone has 9,158. Tailscale has the larger community by that measure.
Are Tailscale and FireZone free?
Both are open source. Tailscale is licensed under BSD-3-Clause and FireZone under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Tailscale and FireZone?
Tailscale is written in Go and FireZone in Elixir. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, Tailscale or FireZone?
Choose Tailscale if you want the larger community (38,534 stars) or its BSD-3-Clause licence terms. Choose FireZone if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.