head to head · open source
Tailscale vs Pangolin
Tailscale has 38,534 GitHub stars, 3,411 forks, 4,569 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Pangolin has 23,299 stars, 807 forks, 128 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Tailscale leads on adoption by 65% (38,534 vs 23,299 stars). Tailscale is written in Go under BSD-3-Clause; Pangolin is written in TypeScript under a custom or non-standard licence. Tailscale has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, Pangolin 3%. Pangolin 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 | Pangolin | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 39K | ★ 23K |
| License | BSD-3-Clause | Custom / other |
| Written in | Go | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.4K | ⑂ 807 |
| 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 Pangolin if
- You want the Pangolin feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Custom / other license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and Pangolin 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 Pangolin
Website Documentation Contact Us Get started with Pangolin Cloud at app.pangolin.net Pangolin is an open source SASE platform, built on WireGuard®, with a simple mission: connect and protect your users, wherever they are. It brings networking and security together as one system including a zero trust VPN, zero trust reverse proxy, privileged access management, and an identity aware AI gateway, all sharing one identity and policy model. It's the same idea behind platforms like Cloudflare One, Zscaler, and Prisma but open, self hostable, and built to stay light and easy to deploy. Networking and security that's…
read the full Pangolin overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Tailscale or Pangolin more popular?
Tailscale has 38,534 GitHub stars and Pangolin has 23,299. Tailscale has the larger community by that measure.
Are Tailscale and Pangolin free?
Both are open source. Tailscale is licensed under BSD-3-Clause, and Pangolin has no licence declared in this registry. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Tailscale and Pangolin?
Tailscale is written in Go and Pangolin in TypeScript. 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 Pangolin?
Choose Tailscale if you want the larger community (38,534 stars) or its BSD-3-Clause licence terms. Choose Pangolin if its feature set, stack or Custom / other licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.