head to head · open source
Pangolin vs Werbot
Pangolin has 22,792 GitHub stars, 788 forks, 128 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Werbot has 170 stars, 10 forks, 18 open issues and last shipped 2 months ago. Pangolin leads on adoption by 13,307% (22,792 vs 170 stars). Pangolin is written in TypeScript under a custom or non-standard licence; Werbot is written in Go under a custom or non-standard licence. Pangolin has attracted 3% as many forks as stars, Werbot 6%. 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
| Pangolin | Werbot | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 23K | ★ 170 |
| License | Custom / other | Custom / other |
| Written in | TypeScript | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-08-03 |
| Forks | ⑂ 788 | ⑂ 10 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Pangolin if
- You weight community size — 23K stars and counting
- You want the Custom / other license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick Werbot if
- You want the Werbot feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Custom / other license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and Werbot fits your workflow better
About Pangolin
Pangolin is an open source SASE platform written in TypeScript and built on WireGuard. It provides secure access and connectivity to applications, infrastructure, and AI workloads by combining a zero trust VPN, a zero trust reverse proxy, privileged access management, and an identity aware AI gateway under one identity and policy model. It belongs to the network security ecosystem, specifically self hosted remote access and SASE tooling.
read the full Pangolin overview →
About Werbot
Werbot is a self hosted server access management platform written in Go and packaged as Docker containers that run as microservices. It gives a team a single place from which to grant, control and audit access to servers, databases, web applications, desktops, containers and clouds, using single sign on rather than shared passwords or scattered private keys. The project lives in the Go and container ecosystem, with supporting components for a web dashboard, enterprise functions, an install script, Windows and Unix agents, and a Pluggable Authentication Module for native two factor authentication on nix platforms.…
read the full Werbot overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Pangolin or Werbot more popular?
Pangolin has 22,792 GitHub stars and Werbot has 170. Pangolin has the larger community by that measure.
Are Pangolin and Werbot free?
Neither Pangolin nor Werbot declares a licence in this registry, so check each project's own repository before relying on either for a commercial use. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Pangolin and Werbot?
Pangolin is written in TypeScript and Werbot in Go. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, Pangolin or Werbot?
Choose Pangolin if you want the larger community (22,792 stars) or its Custom / other licence terms. Choose Werbot if its feature set, stack or Custom / other licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.