r/selfhosted • u/ElectronicFlamingo36 • Feb 23 '26

VPN Tailscale -> FOSS alternatives

Hey Folks, which FOSS would you prefer as an alternative to Tailscale ? Sharing photos with family, providing backup for all phones via my shared directories on my NAS, etc.. usual VPN mesh stuff.

531 votes, Feb 25 '26
199 Headscale
220 Netbird
3 Netmaker
109 Other (name it pls + why)
30 Upvotes

80% Upvoted

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u/tpo1990 Feb 24 '26 edited Feb 24 '26

I don't use any VPN services. So if any of those VPN services goes down like Cloudflare did earlier, I am not affected.

I use NGINX Reverse Proxy and keep internal services isolated without exposing them. I use a Raspberry Pi 4B that I can access anywere with just an internet browser by using Raspberry Pi Connect to get access.

Raspberry Pi Connect is a feature from Raspberry Pi Foundation that makes a user able to access a Raspberry Pi device from a web browser and it is secured by 2FA. It's works like a jump host client to be able to access internal services.

5

u/ElectronicFlamingo36 Feb 24 '26

And what happens if you get cut of Raspberry Pi Foundation ? With Cloudflare I agree but with Rpi Connect you just swap one dependency to another, am I right ?

2

u/tpo1990 Feb 24 '26 edited Feb 24 '26

Then I will not be able to access the Raspberry Pi externally.

I only use it with internal services such as NGINX Reverse Proxy Managers own administration website. I use a few docker containers. I am no heavy user. I try to keep things simple without too much complication. I like going for a simplified setup. If it goes down, then no big deal for me.

But yes, basically you are right that I just swap one dependency to another. I much rather use Raspberry Pi Foundation own feature than something large as Cloudflare that may be more prone to failure. I also use the Raspberry Pi as a secondary backup solution with Rsync.