{"slug": "headscale", "name": "Headscale", "category": "networking", "category_name": "Networking and VPN", "description": "Open-source, self-hosted implementation of the Tailscale coordination (control) server.", "recommenders": 10, "commenters": 18, "warners": 2, "score": 8.716, "rising": -0.62, "first": "2025-11-16", "latest": "2026-10-09", "why": "Used as a self-hosted, open-source Tailscale control plane that works with the official Tailscale clients and is easier to manage than hand-configured WireGuard in growing home labs.", "why_is_quote": false, "has_verdict": true, "sentiment": {"recommend": 10, "neutral": 6, "compare": 0, "warn": 2}, "spark": [0, 0, 0, 4, 4, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 0, 1], "listed": true, "loved": ["Self-hosted control", "Tailscale client support"], "caveat": "Fewer features", "short_quote": "If you can be bothered running the headscale container, you generally don't need to pay for tailscale.", "icon": false, "domain": null, "github_repo": "github.com/juanfont/headscale", "official_url": "https://github.com/juanfont/headscale", "pricing": "open source", "aliases": ["Headscale"], "verdict": [{"text": "Used as a self-hosted, open-source Tailscale control plane", "cites": [{"id": 761508192, "item_id": 47594262, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47594262", "by": "giobox", "date": "2026-03-31", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "If you can be bothered running the headscale container, you generally don't need to pay for tailscale.", "excerpt": "There is a well documented opensource alternative to Tailscale - Headscale. The tailscale client is already opensource, Headscale is opensource drop in replacement for the control server which isn't, and fully compatible with Tailscale clients: https://github.com/juanfont/headscale If you can be bothered running the headscale container, you generally don't need to pay for tailscale. It's been pretty well supported an", "context": "", "use_case": "self-hosted Tailscale control server", "switched_from": "", "story": "I traced my traffic through a home Tailscale exit node"}, {"id": 789968834, "item_id": 49373052, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49373052", "by": "rat_rad", "date": "2026-08-20", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "other methods, such as headscale are also supported and encourage, as to reduce reliance on closed tailscale servers", "excerpt": "AgentVoice is a bridge from your voice portal to your desired coding agent (claude code, cursor, codex) via an custom, global mcp server and more granular cli commands specific to the provider, such as new agent. For wake word detection, it uses a browser loaded, very lightweight vosk model, or a VAD model (silero VAD) instead of outsourcing the entire stream to speech to text provider. It does not actually use speec", "context": "", "use_case": "self-hosted VPN coordination", "switched_from": "", "story": "Agent Voice, communicate with your coding agent all from Voice, on the fly"}, {"id": 776811650, "item_id": 48550728, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48550728", "by": "rklaehn", "date": "2026-06-15", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "the only way to run your own tailnet is to use the headscale community project", "excerpt": "I work on iroh. On the technical level, the biggest difference is probably that we build on QUIC whereas tailscale builds on wireguard. Iroh is a library that is made to embed into your application, whereas the tailscale offering started as a daemon. It allows embedding, but you are still carrying the baggage of a go runtime. Iroh is written in rust. Rust compiles to a native library and is therefore easier and more ", "context": "", "use_case": "self-hosted Tailscale control server", "switched_from": "", "story": "Iroh 1.0"}]}, {"text": " that works with the official Tailscale clients", "cites": [{"id": 761508769, "item_id": 47594298, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47594298", "by": "jonah-archive", "date": "2026-03-31", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "they collaborate with Headscale to provide an open-source coordination server", "excerpt": "The Tailscale client (non-GUI) is open source: https://github.com/tailscale/tailscale And they collaborate with Headscale to provide an open-source coordination server (with, unsurprisingly, a more limited featureset, but it works fine with their closed-source GUI client): https://tailscale.com/opensource#encouraging-headscale I use the combination myself and it works quite well, but of course is less convenient than", "context": "", "use_case": "self-hosted coordination server", "switched_from": "", "story": "I traced my traffic through a home Tailscale exit node"}, {"id": 749553344, "item_id": 46847084, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46847084", "by": "mittermayr", "date": "2026-02-01", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "headscale immediately worked out", "excerpt": "I have one VPS node that I use as a connector, where the headscale app is installed. I have this on a domain (for convenience), so think something like: hs.mygreatplace.com Now, when I install Tailscale client on any device (phones, tablets, Linux machines, proxmox nodes, etc.), I simply say: don't use the tailscale network for this, please route this over my own network, so you point it to hs.mygreatplace.com as a c", "context": "home setup with Proxmox and a VPS", "use_case": "self-hosted Tailscale control server", "switched_from": "WireGuard", "story": "Netbird a German Tailscale alternative (P2P WireGuard-based overlay network)"}, {"id": 749549312, "item_id": 46846832, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46846832", "by": "ErneX", "date": "2026-02-01", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I use Headscale with Tailscale clients, and the Apple TV is very nice to have.", "excerpt": "I use Headscale with Tailscale clients, and the Apple TV is very nice to have. Netbird seems to be working on one but it\u2019s not out yet?", "context": "", "use_case": "self-hosted mesh VPN", "switched_from": "", "story": "Netbird a German Tailscale alternative (P2P WireGuard-based overlay network)"}]}, {"text": " and is easier to manage than hand-configured WireGuard in growing home labs.", "cites": [{"id": 800335985, "item_id": 50020999, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50020999", "by": "AlexAltea", "date": "2026-10-09", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Today I use Tailscale (with Headscale as the control plane) for all users", "excerpt": "Once you get to N = >10 devices, and expect some degree of decentralized communication between them you find yourself maintaining N^2 entries. Every change to the set of public keys, require you updating N entries. Things get worse once you want consistent rules on what-device-should-access-what. I initially used WireGuard, but as my home lab scaled, it became unwieldy. Some people could work around these limitations", "context": "home lab with 10+ devices", "use_case": "Tailscale control plane", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: What do you run on a $5 VPS that's worth keeping online 24/7?"}, {"id": 735797009, "item_id": 45987313, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45987313", "by": "arjie", "date": "2025-11-19", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I'm not affected because I use headscale (for my home network)", "excerpt": "Oh this is unlucky. I'm not affected because I use headscale (for my home network), but this is one of those companies I root for because the product is so good. We used to have manually managed Wireguard (one end terminating at Router) to create the similar effect and for my home, this is way nicer.", "context": "homelab user", "use_case": "home network", "switched_from": "", "story": "Tailscale Down"}, {"id": 749553344, "item_id": 46847084, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46847084", "by": "mittermayr", "date": "2026-02-01", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "headscale immediately worked out", "excerpt": "I have one VPS node that I use as a connector, where the headscale app is installed. I have this on a domain (for convenience), so think something like: hs.mygreatplace.com Now, when I install Tailscale client on any device (phones, tablets, Linux machines, proxmox nodes, etc.), I simply say: don't use the tailscale network for this, please route this over my own network, so you point it to hs.mygreatplace.com as a c", "context": "home setup with Proxmox and a VPS", "use_case": "self-hosted Tailscale control server", "switched_from": "WireGuard", "story": "Netbird a German Tailscale alternative (P2P WireGuard-based overlay network)"}]}, {"text": " Caveats include a smaller feature set and less convenience than Tailscale's hosted service,", "cites": [{"id": 761508769, "item_id": 47594298, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47594298", "by": "jonah-archive", "date": "2026-03-31", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "they collaborate with Headscale to provide an open-source coordination server", "excerpt": "The Tailscale client (non-GUI) is open source: https://github.com/tailscale/tailscale And they collaborate with Headscale to provide an open-source coordination server (with, unsurprisingly, a more limited featureset, but it works fine with their closed-source GUI client): https://tailscale.com/opensource#encouraging-headscale I use the combination myself and it works quite well, but of course is less convenient than", "context": "", "use_case": "self-hosted coordination server", "switched_from": "", "story": "I traced my traffic through a home Tailscale exit node"}]}, {"text": " plus reports of finickiness and worries about its reliance on a few Tailscale-affiliated maintainers.", "cites": [{"id": 749568097, "item_id": 46848006, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46848006", "by": "Factor1177", "date": "2026-02-01", "stance": "warn", "quote": "I was previously using headscale and was finding it a bit finicky.", "excerpt": "I was previously using headscale and was finding it a bit finicky. Recently switched to self hosted netbird and its been great so far. However, if the Netbird teams sees this, please implement a built-in updater for the client apps! needing to download and install the package again is a bit annoying", "context": "", "use_case": "self-hosted mesh VPN", "switched_from": "", "story": "Netbird a German Tailscale alternative (P2P WireGuard-based overlay network)"}, {"id": 749556802, "item_id": 46847300, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46847300", "by": "xyst", "date": "2026-02-01", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I love tailscale/headscale but will definitely give this a try.", "excerpt": "I immediately looked at this and thought it was a tailscale clone. I looked further into it and it\u2019s essentially the same. Implementation over ease of use of wireguard setup. Peer to peer modeling. Mesh networking. \"Zero trust\". However, what I find interesting is netbird has open sourced their _coordinator server_. This allows for self hosting to be end to end. yes with tailscale there exists \"headscale\", but it\u2019s c", "context": "", "use_case": "self-hosted Tailscale coordinator", "switched_from": "", "story": "Netbird a German Tailscale alternative (P2P WireGuard-based overlay network)"}]}], "praise": [{"label": "Self-hosted control", "summary": "Lets users run their own tailnet without paying for or relying on Tailscale's closed servers.", "quotes": [{"id": 761508192, "item_id": 47594262, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47594262", "by": "giobox", "date": "2026-03-31", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "If you can be bothered running the headscale container, you generally don't need to pay for tailscale.", "excerpt": "There is a well documented opensource alternative to Tailscale - Headscale. The tailscale client is already opensource, Headscale is opensource drop in replacement for the control server which isn't, and fully compatible with Tailscale clients: https://github.com/juanfont/headscale If you can be bothered running the headscale container, you generally don't need to pay for tailscale. It's been pretty well supported an", "context": "", "use_case": "self-hosted Tailscale control server", "switched_from": "", "story": "I traced my traffic through a home Tailscale exit node"}, {"id": 789968834, "item_id": 49373052, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49373052", "by": "rat_rad", "date": "2026-08-20", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "other methods, such as headscale are also supported and encourage, as to reduce reliance on closed tailscale servers", "excerpt": "AgentVoice is a bridge from your voice portal to your desired coding agent (claude code, cursor, codex) via an custom, global mcp server and more granular cli commands specific to the provider, such as new agent. For wake word detection, it uses a browser loaded, very lightweight vosk model, or a VAD model (silero VAD) instead of outsourcing the entire stream to speech to text provider. It does not actually use speec", "context": "", "use_case": "self-hosted VPN coordination", "switched_from": "", "story": "Agent Voice, communicate with your coding agent all from Voice, on the fly"}, {"id": 776811650, "item_id": 48550728, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48550728", "by": "rklaehn", "date": "2026-06-15", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "the only way to run your own tailnet is to use the headscale community project", "excerpt": "I work on iroh. On the technical level, the biggest difference is probably that we build on QUIC whereas tailscale builds on wireguard. Iroh is a library that is made to embed into your application, whereas the tailscale offering started as a daemon. It allows embedding, but you are still carrying the baggage of a go runtime. Iroh is written in rust. Rust compiles to a native library and is therefore easier and more ", "context": "", "use_case": "self-hosted Tailscale control server", "switched_from": "", "story": "Iroh 1.0"}]}, {"label": "Tailscale client support", "summary": "Works with the official Tailscale clients on phones, Linux, Proxmox and Apple TV.", "quotes": [{"id": 749553344, "item_id": 46847084, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46847084", "by": "mittermayr", "date": "2026-02-01", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "headscale immediately worked out", "excerpt": "I have one VPS node that I use as a connector, where the headscale app is installed. I have this on a domain (for convenience), so think something like: hs.mygreatplace.com Now, when I install Tailscale client on any device (phones, tablets, Linux machines, proxmox nodes, etc.), I simply say: don't use the tailscale network for this, please route this over my own network, so you point it to hs.mygreatplace.com as a c", "context": "home setup with Proxmox and a VPS", "use_case": "self-hosted Tailscale control server", "switched_from": "WireGuard", "story": "Netbird a German Tailscale alternative (P2P WireGuard-based overlay network)"}, {"id": 749549312, "item_id": 46846832, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46846832", "by": "ErneX", "date": "2026-02-01", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I use Headscale with Tailscale clients, and the Apple TV is very nice to have.", "excerpt": "I use Headscale with Tailscale clients, and the Apple TV is very nice to have. Netbird seems to be working on one but it\u2019s not out yet?", "context": "", "use_case": "self-hosted mesh VPN", "switched_from": "", "story": "Netbird a German Tailscale alternative (P2P WireGuard-based overlay network)"}, {"id": 761508769, "item_id": 47594298, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47594298", "by": "jonah-archive", "date": "2026-03-31", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "they collaborate with Headscale to provide an open-source coordination server", "excerpt": "The Tailscale client (non-GUI) is open source: https://github.com/tailscale/tailscale And they collaborate with Headscale to provide an open-source coordination server (with, unsurprisingly, a more limited featureset, but it works fine with their closed-source GUI client): https://tailscale.com/opensource#encouraging-headscale I use the combination myself and it works quite well, but of course is less convenient than", "context": "", "use_case": "self-hosted coordination server", "switched_from": "", "story": "I traced my traffic through a home Tailscale exit node"}]}, {"label": "Beats manual WireGuard", "summary": "Avoids maintaining per-device WireGuard key entries as a network grows.", "quotes": [{"id": 800335985, "item_id": 50020999, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50020999", "by": "AlexAltea", "date": "2026-10-09", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Today I use Tailscale (with Headscale as the control plane) for all users", "excerpt": "Once you get to N = >10 devices, and expect some degree of decentralized communication between them you find yourself maintaining N^2 entries. Every change to the set of public keys, require you updating N entries. Things get worse once you want consistent rules on what-device-should-access-what. I initially used WireGuard, but as my home lab scaled, it became unwieldy. Some people could work around these limitations", "context": "home lab with 10+ devices", "use_case": "Tailscale control plane", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: What do you run on a $5 VPS that's worth keeping online 24/7?"}, {"id": 735797009, "item_id": 45987313, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45987313", "by": "arjie", "date": "2025-11-19", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I'm not affected because I use headscale (for my home network)", "excerpt": "Oh this is unlucky. I'm not affected because I use headscale (for my home network), but this is one of those companies I root for because the product is so good. We used to have manually managed Wireguard (one end terminating at Router) to create the similar effect and for my home, this is way nicer.", "context": "homelab user", "use_case": "home network", "switched_from": "", "story": "Tailscale Down"}, {"id": 749553344, "item_id": 46847084, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46847084", "by": "mittermayr", "date": "2026-02-01", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "headscale immediately worked out", "excerpt": "I have one VPS node that I use as a connector, where the headscale app is installed. I have this on a domain (for convenience), so think something like: hs.mygreatplace.com Now, when I install Tailscale client on any device (phones, tablets, Linux machines, proxmox nodes, etc.), I simply say: don't use the tailscale network for this, please route this over my own network, so you point it to hs.mygreatplace.com as a c", "context": "home setup with Proxmox and a VPS", "use_case": "self-hosted Tailscale control server", "switched_from": "WireGuard", "story": "Netbird a German Tailscale alternative (P2P WireGuard-based overlay network)"}]}, {"label": "Works well", "summary": "Users report it working quickly and well in practice.", "quotes": [{"id": 749553344, "item_id": 46847084, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46847084", "by": "mittermayr", "date": "2026-02-01", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "headscale immediately worked out", "excerpt": "I have one VPS node that I use as a connector, where the headscale app is installed. I have this on a domain (for convenience), so think something like: hs.mygreatplace.com Now, when I install Tailscale client on any device (phones, tablets, Linux machines, proxmox nodes, etc.), I simply say: don't use the tailscale network for this, please route this over my own network, so you point it to hs.mygreatplace.com as a c", "context": "home setup with Proxmox and a VPS", "use_case": "self-hosted Tailscale control server", "switched_from": "WireGuard", "story": "Netbird a German Tailscale alternative (P2P WireGuard-based overlay network)"}, {"id": 761508769, "item_id": 47594298, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47594298", "by": "jonah-archive", "date": "2026-03-31", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "they collaborate with Headscale to provide an open-source coordination server", "excerpt": "The Tailscale client (non-GUI) is open source: https://github.com/tailscale/tailscale And they collaborate with Headscale to provide an open-source coordination server (with, unsurprisingly, a more limited featureset, but it works fine with their closed-source GUI client): https://tailscale.com/opensource#encouraging-headscale I use the combination myself and it works quite well, but of course is less convenient than", "context": "", "use_case": "self-hosted coordination server", "switched_from": "", "story": "I traced my traffic through a home Tailscale exit node"}]}, {"label": "Easy deployment", "summary": "An official Docker container makes it straightforward to run.", "quotes": [{"id": 762170192, "item_id": 47635637, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47635637", "by": "KetoManx64", "date": "2026-04-03", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "Headscale already provides a docker container: https://hub.docker.com/r/headscale/headscale", "excerpt": "Headscale already provides a docker container: https://hub.docker.com/r/headscale/headscale Why would I use this from a total online stranger instead?", "context": "", "use_case": "self-hosted Tailscale control server", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: Docker setup for Headscale (self-hosted Tailscale control server)"}, {"id": 761508192, "item_id": 47594262, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47594262", "by": "giobox", "date": "2026-03-31", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "If you can be bothered running the headscale container, you generally don't need to pay for tailscale.", "excerpt": "There is a well documented opensource alternative to Tailscale - Headscale. The tailscale client is already opensource, Headscale is opensource drop in replacement for the control server which isn't, and fully compatible with Tailscale clients: https://github.com/juanfont/headscale If you can be bothered running the headscale container, you generally don't need to pay for tailscale. It's been pretty well supported an", "context": "", "use_case": "self-hosted Tailscale control server", "switched_from": "", "story": "I traced my traffic through a home Tailscale exit node"}]}], "caveats": [{"label": "Fewer features", "summary": "Has a more limited feature set and is less convenient than Tailscale's own service.", "quotes": [{"id": 761508769, "item_id": 47594298, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47594298", "by": "jonah-archive", "date": "2026-03-31", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "they collaborate with Headscale to provide an open-source coordination server", "excerpt": "The Tailscale client (non-GUI) is open source: https://github.com/tailscale/tailscale And they collaborate with Headscale to provide an open-source coordination server (with, unsurprisingly, a more limited featureset, but it works fine with their closed-source GUI client): https://tailscale.com/opensource#encouraging-headscale I use the combination myself and it works quite well, but of course is less convenient than", "context": "", "use_case": "self-hosted coordination server", "switched_from": "", "story": "I traced my traffic through a home Tailscale exit node"}]}, {"label": "Finicky", "summary": "One user found it finicky and switched to self-hosted NetBird.", "quotes": [{"id": 749568097, "item_id": 46848006, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46848006", "by": "Factor1177", "date": "2026-02-01", "stance": "warn", "quote": "I was previously using headscale and was finding it a bit finicky.", "excerpt": "I was previously using headscale and was finding it a bit finicky. Recently switched to self hosted netbird and its been great so far. However, if the Netbird teams sees this, please implement a built-in updater for the client apps! needing to download and install the package again is a bit annoying", "context": "", "use_case": "self-hosted mesh VPN", "switched_from": "", "story": "Netbird a German Tailscale alternative (P2P WireGuard-based overlay network)"}]}, {"label": "Maintenance risk", "summary": "Seen as a side project maintained by few people, raising concerns about its future.", "quotes": [{"id": 749556802, "item_id": 46847300, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46847300", "by": "xyst", "date": "2026-02-01", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I love tailscale/headscale but will definitely give this a try.", "excerpt": "I immediately looked at this and thought it was a tailscale clone. I looked further into it and it\u2019s essentially the same. Implementation over ease of use of wireguard setup. Peer to peer modeling. Mesh networking. \"Zero trust\". However, what I find interesting is netbird has open sourced their _coordinator server_. This allows for self hosting to be end to end. yes with tailscale there exists \"headscale\", but it\u2019s c", "context": "", "use_case": "self-hosted Tailscale coordinator", "switched_from": "", "story": "Netbird a German Tailscale alternative (P2P WireGuard-based overlay network)"}]}, {"label": "Client conflicts", "summary": "You can't run both Headscale and Tailscale networks on the same end-user machines.", "quotes": [{"id": 735169392, "item_id": 45948087, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45948087", "by": "k_bx", "date": "2025-11-16", "stance": "warn", "quote": "$3 VPS running Headscale is not simpler since you won't be able to run both headscale and tailscale on your end user machines, I don't recommend it.", "excerpt": "$3 VPS running Headscale is not simpler since you won't be able to run both headscale and tailscale on your end user machines, I don't recommend it. The solution we've found is running a white IP container (or VPS) which looks like regular Wireguard outside, while inside it \"forwards\" to your existing tailscale network. I don't remember if we use https://github.com/gravitl/netmaker or https://github.com/juhovh/tailgu", "context": "", "use_case": "self-hosted Tailscale control server", "switched_from": "", "story": "I finally understand Cloudflare Zero Trust tunnels"}]}], "who": [{"by": "MayeulC", "context": "runs a VPS plus multiple physical servers", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50025593", "date": "2026-10-09"}, {"by": "AlexAltea", "context": "home lab with 10+ devices", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50020999", "date": "2026-10-09"}, {"by": "davidpaulyoung", "context": "uses it daily", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47390607", "date": "2026-03-15"}, {"by": "mittermayr", "context": "home setup with Proxmox and a VPS", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46847084", "date": "2026-02-01"}, {"by": "arjie", "context": "homelab user", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45987313", "date": "2025-11-19"}], "tags": ["for home labs", "self-hostable", "for Tailscale users", "for mixed-device networks"], "use_cases": ["self-hosted tailscale control server", "tailscale control plane", "self-hosted mesh vpn", "self-hosted vpn coordination", "self-hosted coordination server", "self-hosted vpn control plane"], "compared": [{"slug": "tailscale", "name": "Tailscale", "co": 17, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "wireguard", "name": "WireGuard", "co": 6, "switched_from": 1, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "netbird", "name": "NetBird", "co": 5, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 1}, {"slug": "vaultwarden", "name": "Vaultwarden", "co": 2, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "nextcloud", "name": "Nextcloud", "co": 2, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}], "makers": [], "threads": [{"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46844870", "title": "Netbird a German Tailscale alternative (P2P WireGuard-based overlay network)", "mentions": 4}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49985548", "title": "Ask HN: What do you run on a $5 VPS that's worth keeping online 24/7?", "mentions": 2}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47592462", "title": "I traced my traffic through a home Tailscale exit node", "mentions": 2}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46580326", "title": "2026 is the Year of Self-hosting", "mentions": 2}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49373051", "title": "Agent Voice, communicate with your coding agent all from Voice, on the fly", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48542480", "title": "Iroh 1.0", "mentions": 1}], "sentiment_by_month": {"2025-11": {"warn": 1, "neutral": 1}, "2025-12": {}, "2026-01": {"neutral": 2}, "2026-02": {"recommend": 4, "warn": 1}, "2026-03": {"recommend": 4}, "2026-04": {"neutral": 1}, "2026-05": {}, "2026-06": {"neutral": 1}, "2026-07": {}, "2026-08": {"recommend": 1}, "2026-09": {}, "2026-10": {"recommend": 1, "neutral": 1}}, "quotes": [{"id": 800409489, "item_id": 50025593, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50025593", "by": "MayeulC", "date": "2026-10-09", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I think I'll move my headscale node there, since it has the highest availability", "excerpt": "Well, I have a VPS, plus multiple physical servers in different locations (parents, etc). The VPS is useful for: - sending e-mails (hard to improve your reputation on residential IPs and get a reverse DNS record) - Unifi controller, though I appreciate Unifi less and less. - Uptime monitoring / status page - I think I'll move my headscale node there, since it has the highest availability -- Internet was out for a wee", "context": "runs a VPS plus multiple physical servers", "use_case": "self-hosted Tailscale control server", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: What do you run on a $5 VPS that's worth keeping online 24/7?"}, {"id": 800335985, "item_id": 50020999, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50020999", "by": "AlexAltea", "date": "2026-10-09", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Today I use Tailscale (with Headscale as the control plane) for all users", "excerpt": "Once you get to N = >10 devices, and expect some degree of decentralized communication between them you find yourself maintaining N^2 entries. Every change to the set of public keys, require you updating N entries. Things get worse once you want consistent rules on what-device-should-access-what. I initially used WireGuard, but as my home lab scaled, it became unwieldy. Some people could work around these limitations", "context": "home lab with 10+ devices", "use_case": "Tailscale control plane", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: What do you run on a $5 VPS that's worth keeping online 24/7?"}, {"id": 789968834, "item_id": 49373052, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49373052", "by": "rat_rad", "date": "2026-08-20", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "other methods, such as headscale are also supported and encourage, as to reduce reliance on closed tailscale servers", "excerpt": "AgentVoice is a bridge from your voice portal to your desired coding agent (claude code, cursor, codex) via an custom, global mcp server and more granular cli commands specific to the provider, such as new agent. For wake word detection, it uses a browser loaded, very lightweight vosk model, or a VAD model (silero VAD) instead of outsourcing the entire stream to speech to text provider. It does not actually use speec", "context": "", "use_case": "self-hosted VPN coordination", "switched_from": "", "story": "Agent Voice, communicate with your coding agent all from Voice, on the fly"}, {"id": 776811650, "item_id": 48550728, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48550728", "by": "rklaehn", "date": "2026-06-15", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "the only way to run your own tailnet is to use the headscale community project", "excerpt": "I work on iroh. On the technical level, the biggest difference is probably that we build on QUIC whereas tailscale builds on wireguard. Iroh is a library that is made to embed into your application, whereas the tailscale offering started as a daemon. It allows embedding, but you are still carrying the baggage of a go runtime. Iroh is written in rust. Rust compiles to a native library and is therefore easier and more ", "context": "", "use_case": "self-hosted Tailscale control server", "switched_from": "", "story": "Iroh 1.0"}, {"id": 762170192, "item_id": 47635637, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47635637", "by": "KetoManx64", "date": "2026-04-03", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "Headscale already provides a docker container: https://hub.docker.com/r/headscale/headscale", "excerpt": "Headscale already provides a docker container: https://hub.docker.com/r/headscale/headscale Why would I use this from a total online stranger instead?", "context": "", "use_case": "self-hosted Tailscale control server", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: Docker setup for Headscale (self-hosted Tailscale control server)"}, {"id": 761508769, "item_id": 47594298, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47594298", "by": "jonah-archive", "date": "2026-03-31", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "they collaborate with Headscale to provide an open-source coordination server", "excerpt": "The Tailscale client (non-GUI) is open source: https://github.com/tailscale/tailscale And they collaborate with Headscale to provide an open-source coordination server (with, unsurprisingly, a more limited featureset, but it works fine with their closed-source GUI client): https://tailscale.com/opensource#encouraging-headscale I use the combination myself and it works quite well, but of course is less convenient than", "context": "", "use_case": "self-hosted coordination server", "switched_from": "", "story": "I traced my traffic through a home Tailscale exit node"}, {"id": 761508192, "item_id": 47594262, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47594262", "by": "giobox", "date": "2026-03-31", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "If you can be bothered running the headscale container, you generally don't need to pay for tailscale.", "excerpt": "There is a well documented opensource alternative to Tailscale - Headscale. The tailscale client is already opensource, Headscale is opensource drop in replacement for the control server which isn't, and fully compatible with Tailscale clients: https://github.com/juanfont/headscale If you can be bothered running the headscale container, you generally don't need to pay for tailscale. It's been pretty well supported an", "context": "", "use_case": "self-hosted Tailscale control server", "switched_from": "", "story": "I traced my traffic through a home Tailscale exit node"}, {"id": 758249713, "item_id": 47390607, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47390607", "by": "davidpaulyoung", "date": "2026-03-15", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "You can have hosted Nextcloud on Hetzner, with Headscale, email server, Vaultwarden, and Wordpress", "excerpt": "You can have hosted Nextcloud on Hetzner, with Headscale, email server, Vaultwarden, and Wordpress on European infrastructure (Hetzner) individually installed just for you from Federated Computer today for $19/month unlimited user accounts. I use it every day. Human support, too...!", "context": "uses it daily", "use_case": "self-hosted VPN control plane", "switched_from": "", "story": "Office.eu launches as Europe's sovereign office platform"}, {"id": 758232194, "item_id": 47389512, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47389512", "by": "vinceguidry", "date": "2026-03-15", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I've stood up syncthing, tailscale with a headscale control plane", "excerpt": "I recently started using AI for personal projects, and I find it works really well for 'spike' type tasks, where what you're trying to do is grow your knowledge about a particular domain. It's less good at discovering the correct way of doing things once you've decided on a path forward, but still more useful than combing through API docs and manpages yourself. It might not actually deliver working things all that mu", "context": "", "use_case": "Tailscale control plane", "switched_from": "", "story": "Codegen Is Not Productivity"}, {"id": 750366625, "item_id": 46897914, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46897914", "by": "_Chief", "date": "2026-02-05", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I hear headscale is good", "excerpt": "> If the SSH connection is set to disallow passwords and only authorize via SSH keys, how big of a risk is this low risk, do this. Keys (ed25519,4096 rsa) are impractical to brute force. However I'd also recommend: - use a different port than 22 (add your .ssh/config for easier UX if needed) - port 22 can get incredibly noisy with tons of bots probing - disable passwordAuth, disable PermitRootLogin - use a normal use", "context": "", "use_case": "self-hosted Tailscale control server", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: Is Connecting via SSH Risky?"}, {"id": 749568097, "item_id": 46848006, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46848006", "by": "Factor1177", "date": "2026-02-01", "stance": "warn", "quote": "I was previously using headscale and was finding it a bit finicky.", "excerpt": "I was previously using headscale and was finding it a bit finicky. Recently switched to self hosted netbird and its been great so far. However, if the Netbird teams sees this, please implement a built-in updater for the client apps! needing to download and install the package again is a bit annoying", "context": "", "use_case": "self-hosted mesh VPN", "switched_from": "", "story": "Netbird a German Tailscale alternative (P2P WireGuard-based overlay network)"}, {"id": 749556802, "item_id": 46847300, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46847300", "by": "xyst", "date": "2026-02-01", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I love tailscale/headscale but will definitely give this a try.", "excerpt": "I immediately looked at this and thought it was a tailscale clone. I looked further into it and it\u2019s essentially the same. Implementation over ease of use of wireguard setup. Peer to peer modeling. Mesh networking. \"Zero trust\". However, what I find interesting is netbird has open sourced their _coordinator server_. This allows for self hosting to be end to end. yes with tailscale there exists \"headscale\", but it\u2019s c", "context": "", "use_case": "self-hosted Tailscale coordinator", "switched_from": "", "story": "Netbird a German Tailscale alternative (P2P WireGuard-based overlay network)"}, {"id": 749553344, "item_id": 46847084, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46847084", "by": "mittermayr", "date": "2026-02-01", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "headscale immediately worked out", "excerpt": "I have one VPS node that I use as a connector, where the headscale app is installed. I have this on a domain (for convenience), so think something like: hs.mygreatplace.com Now, when I install Tailscale client on any device (phones, tablets, Linux machines, proxmox nodes, etc.), I simply say: don't use the tailscale network for this, please route this over my own network, so you point it to hs.mygreatplace.com as a c", "context": "home setup with Proxmox and a VPS", "use_case": "self-hosted Tailscale control server", "switched_from": "WireGuard", "story": "Netbird a German Tailscale alternative (P2P WireGuard-based overlay network)"}, {"id": 749549312, "item_id": 46846832, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46846832", "by": "ErneX", "date": "2026-02-01", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I use Headscale with Tailscale clients, and the Apple TV is very nice to have.", "excerpt": "I use Headscale with Tailscale clients, and the Apple TV is very nice to have. Netbird seems to be working on one but it\u2019s not out yet?", "context": "", "use_case": "self-hosted mesh VPN", "switched_from": "", "story": "Netbird a German Tailscale alternative (P2P WireGuard-based overlay network)"}, {"id": 745352481, "item_id": 46584530, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46584530", "by": "catlifeonmars", "date": "2026-01-11", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I\u2019ve been meaning to give this a try this winter", "excerpt": "Honestly the managed PKI is the main value-add from Tailscale over plain wireguard. I\u2019ve been meaning to give this a try this winter: https://github.com/juanfont/headscale", "context": "", "use_case": "self-hosted Tailscale control server", "switched_from": "", "story": "2026 is the Year of Self-hosting"}, {"id": 745320080, "item_id": 46582505, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46582505", "by": "Imustaskforhelp", "date": "2026-01-11", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "You can even self host tailscale via headscale but I don't know how the experience goes", "excerpt": "Hey, if tailscale is something you are worried about. There are open source alternatives to it as well but I think if your purpose is to just port forward a simple server port, wouldn't ssh in general itself be okay with you. You can even self host tailscale via headscale but I don't know how the experience goes but there are some genuine open source software like netbird,zerotier etc. as well You could also if inter", "context": "", "use_case": "self-hosted Tailscale control server", "switched_from": "", "story": "2026 is the Year of Self-hosting"}, {"id": 735797009, "item_id": 45987313, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45987313", "by": "arjie", "date": "2025-11-19", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I'm not affected because I use headscale (for my home network)", "excerpt": "Oh this is unlucky. I'm not affected because I use headscale (for my home network), but this is one of those companies I root for because the product is so good. We used to have manually managed Wireguard (one end terminating at Router) to create the similar effect and for my home, this is way nicer.", "context": "homelab user", "use_case": "home network", "switched_from": "", "story": "Tailscale Down"}, {"id": 735169392, "item_id": 45948087, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45948087", "by": "k_bx", "date": "2025-11-16", "stance": "warn", "quote": "$3 VPS running Headscale is not simpler since you won't be able to run both headscale and tailscale on your end user machines, I don't recommend it.", "excerpt": "$3 VPS running Headscale is not simpler since you won't be able to run both headscale and tailscale on your end user machines, I don't recommend it. The solution we've found is running a white IP container (or VPS) which looks like regular Wireguard outside, while inside it \"forwards\" to your existing tailscale network. I don't remember if we use https://github.com/gravitl/netmaker or https://github.com/juhovh/tailgu", "context": "", "use_case": "self-hosted Tailscale control server", "switched_from": "", "story": "I finally understand Cloudflare Zero Trust tunnels"}]}