head to head · open source
Tailscale vs ProjectDiscovery
Tailscale has 36,587 GitHub stars, 3,218 forks, 4,569 open issues and last shipped yesterday. ProjectDiscovery has 31,272 stars, 3,875 forks, 107 open issues and last shipped 3 days ago. Tailscale leads on adoption by 17% (36,587 vs 31,272 stars). Tailscale is written in Go under BSD-3-Clause; ProjectDiscovery is written in Go under MIT. Tailscale has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, ProjectDiscovery 12%. 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.
← all 8884 open source comparisons
Side by side
| Tailscale | ProjectDiscovery | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 37K | ★ 31K |
| License | BSD-3-Clause | MIT |
| Written in | Go | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-15 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.2K | ⑂ 3.9K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Tailscale if
- You weight community size — 37K 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 ProjectDiscovery if
- You want the ProjectDiscovery feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and ProjectDiscovery fits your workflow better
About Tailscale
Tailscale is an open source implementation of a zero configuration VPN built on WireGuard, designed to simplify secure network connectivity across devices. It lives in the network security ecosystem and provides private, encrypted networks without manual firewall or IP management. The project delivers both a daemon ( tailscaled ) and CLI tool ( tailscale ) that enable peer to peer connectivity using WireGuard, augmented with identity based access controls and optional cloud managed features.
read the full Tailscale overview →
About ProjectDiscovery
Nuclei is a high performance, open source vulnerability scanner built by ProjectDiscovery, part of the ProjectDiscovery ecosystem. It operates as a CLI tool using a simple YAML based DSL to define custom vulnerability checks, enabling precise, real world exploitation simulation to eliminate false positives.
read the full ProjectDiscovery overview →
More in Security & Privacy
Related comparisons
More Network Security projects
Compare either of these against the rest of the Network Security field.
Frequently asked questions
Is Tailscale or ProjectDiscovery more popular?
Tailscale has 36,587 GitHub stars and ProjectDiscovery has 31,272. Tailscale has the larger community by that measure.
Are Tailscale and ProjectDiscovery free?
Both are open source. Tailscale is licensed under BSD-3-Clause and ProjectDiscovery under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Tailscale and ProjectDiscovery?
Tailscale is written in Go and ProjectDiscovery 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, Tailscale or ProjectDiscovery?
Choose Tailscale if you want the larger community (36,587 stars) or its BSD-3-Clause licence terms. Choose ProjectDiscovery if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.