head to head · open source
Netbird vs WireGuard
Netbird has 30,565 GitHub stars, 1,819 forks, 1,512 open issues and last shipped yesterday. WireGuard has 735 stars, 325 forks, 20 open issues and last shipped 6 months ago. Netbird leads on adoption by 4,059% (30,565 vs 735 stars). Netbird is written in Go under a custom or non-standard licence; WireGuard is written in C under GPL-2.0. Netbird has attracted 6% as many forks as stars, WireGuard 44%. Netbird 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
| Netbird | WireGuard | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 31K | ★ 735 |
| License | Custom / other | GPL-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | C |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-05-06 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.8K | ⑂ 325 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Netbird if
- You weight community size — 31K stars and counting
- You want the Custom / other license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick WireGuard if
- You want the WireGuard feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches C
- You evaluated both and WireGuard fits your workflow better
About Netbird
Start using NetBird at netbird.io See Documentation Join our Slack channel or our Community forum 🚀 We are hiring! Join us at 🤖 NetBird Agent Network (Beta) Identity aware access control for AI agents — keyless access to LLM APIs and private resources over the encrypted NetBird tunnel. See agent network/ or read the docs at netbird.ai . NetBird combines a configuration free peer to peer private network and a centralized access control system in a single platform, making it easy to create secure private networks for your organization or home. Connect. NetBird creates a WireGuard based overlay network that…
read the full Netbird overview →
About WireGuard
wireguard tools — tools for configuring WireGuard This supplies the main userspace tooling for using and configuring WireGuard tunnels, including the wg(8) and wg quick(8) utilities. This project supports Linux, OpenBSD, FreeBSD, macOS, Windows, and Android. More information may be found at WireGuard.com. Building $ cd src $ make There are no dependencies other than a good C compiler and a sane libc. Installing make install This command takes into account several environment variables: PREFIX default: /usr DESTDIR default: BINDIR default: $(PREFIX)/bin LIBDIR default: $(PREFIX)/lib MANDIR default…
read the full WireGuard overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Netbird or WireGuard more popular?
Netbird has 30,565 GitHub stars and WireGuard has 735. Netbird has the larger community by that measure.
Are Netbird and WireGuard free?
Both are open source. Netbird has no licence declared in this registry, and WireGuard is licensed under GPL-2.0. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Netbird and WireGuard?
Netbird is written in Go and WireGuard in C. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, Netbird or WireGuard?
Choose Netbird if you want the larger community (30,565 stars) or its Custom / other licence terms. Choose WireGuard if its feature set, stack or GPL-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.