head to head · open source
RustDesk vs Tailscale
RustDesk has 127,925 GitHub stars, 20,252 forks, 147 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Tailscale has 38,534 stars, 3,411 forks, 4,569 open issues and last shipped yesterday. RustDesk leads on adoption by 232% (127,925 vs 38,534 stars). RustDesk is written in Rust under AGPL-3.0; Tailscale is written in Go under BSD-3-Clause. RustDesk has attracted 16% as many forks as stars, Tailscale 9%. Tailscale 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
| RustDesk | Tailscale | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 128K | ★ 39K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | BSD-3-Clause |
| Written in | Rust | Go |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 20K | ⑂ 3.4K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick RustDesk if
- You weight community size — 128K stars and counting
- You want the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick Tailscale if
- You want the Tailscale feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the BSD-3-Clause license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and Tailscale fits your workflow better
About RustDesk
Build • Docker • Structure • Screenshots [ Українська ] [ česky ] [ 中文 ] [ Magyar ] [ Español ] [ فارسی ] [ Français ] [ Deutsch ] [ Polski ] [ Indonesian ] [ Suomi ] [ മലയാളം ] [ 日本語 ] [ Nederlands ] [ Italiano ] [ Русский ] [ Português (Brasil) ] [ Esperanto ] [ 한국어 ] [ العربي ] [ Tiếng Việt ] [ Dansk ] [ Ελληνικά ] [ Türkçe ] [ Norsk ] [ Română ] We need your help to translate this README, RustDesk UI and RustDesk Doc to your native language [!Caution] Misuse Disclaimer: The developers of RustDesk do not condone or support any unethical or illegal use of this software. Misuse, such as unauthorized access…
read the full RustDesk overview →
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 →
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Frequently asked questions
Is RustDesk or Tailscale more popular?
RustDesk has 127,925 GitHub stars and Tailscale has 38,534. RustDesk has the larger community by that measure.
Are RustDesk and Tailscale free?
Both are open source. RustDesk is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and Tailscale under BSD-3-Clause. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between RustDesk and Tailscale?
RustDesk is written in Rust and Tailscale 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, RustDesk or Tailscale?
Choose RustDesk if you want the larger community (127,925 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose Tailscale if its feature set, stack or BSD-3-Clause licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.