head to head · open source
Tailscale vs Werbot
Tailscale has 38,534 GitHub stars, 3,411 forks, 4,569 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Werbot has 169 stars, 10 forks, 18 open issues and last shipped 3 months ago. Tailscale leads on adoption by 22,701% (38,534 vs 169 stars). Tailscale is written in Go under BSD-3-Clause; Werbot is written in Go under a custom or non-standard licence. Tailscale has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, Werbot 6%. 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
| Tailscale | Werbot | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 39K | ★ 169 |
| License | BSD-3-Clause | Custom / other |
| Written in | Go | Go |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-08-03 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.4K | ⑂ 10 |
| 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 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 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 Werbot
What is Werbot? Werbot is an open source solution allowing users to securely share access to servers, data bases, web applications, desktops, containers and clouds; providing full fledged options for controlling and auditing of the work performed on them. ⚠️ Current major version is zero ( v0.x.x ) to accommodate rapid development and fast iteration while getting early feedback from users. Please keep in mind that Werbot is still under active development and therefore full backward compatibility is not guaranteed before reaching v1.0.0. 🏆 Features Werbot works with dedicated, VPS, and cloud servers Manages…
read the full Werbot overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Tailscale or Werbot more popular?
Tailscale has 38,534 GitHub stars and Werbot has 169. Tailscale has the larger community by that measure.
Are Tailscale and Werbot free?
Both are open source. Tailscale is licensed under BSD-3-Clause, and Werbot has no licence declared in this registry. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Tailscale and Werbot?
Tailscale is written in Go 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, Tailscale or Werbot?
Choose Tailscale if you want the larger community (38,534 stars) or its BSD-3-Clause licence terms. Choose Werbot if its feature set, stack or Custom / other licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.