# Alternatives to Nebula Nebula is an open-source peer-to-peer mesh networking tool originally built and battle-tested internally at Slack before being open-sourced. It uses its own lightweight, certificate-based identity and encryption scheme (not WireGuard) to build encrypted mesh networks across NATs and firewalls at scale, and it is fully self-hostable with no SaaS dependency. A commercial hosted control plane for it is offered separately by Defined Networking. Nebula ranks #8 of 11 in Mesh VPNs, with an Alt Score of 70. It is licensed under MIT, open source with paid hosting and available on Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS and Android. 10 of 12 checklist rows are verified against a public source. Source: https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/nebula/ Category: Mesh VPNs ## Overview - **Who it's for**: System administrators and infrastructure teams who want to build and self-host a private overlay network connecting servers, laptops, and mobile devices across clouds, datacenters, and NATs without managing their own PKI by hand. - **What you get**: An open-source, certificate-authenticated overlay networking tool with built-in firewall-style access rules (Nebula security groups), UDP hole punching for NAT traversal, optional routing of external subnets or a default route through a gateway host (unsafe_routes), and an experimental DNS resolver served from lighthouse nodes for name-based host lookup. - **How it works**: Each host runs the nebula binary with a certificate signed by a self-hosted certificate authority (via the nebula-cert tool) that asserts its overlay IP, name, and group memberships; one or more lighthouse nodes with routable IPs let peers discover each other and establish direct, mutually authenticated tunnels using the Noise Protocol Framework, falling back to relays when direct connectivity isn't possible. ## Profile - **License**: MIT (verified 2026-07-30) - **Pricing model**: OSS + paid hosting (verified 2026-07-30) - **Platforms**: Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, Android - **Status**: active (verified 2026-07-30) ## Ranked alternatives | # | App | Alt Score | Licence | Platforms | |---|-----|-----------|---------|-----------| | 1 | [NetBird](https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/netbird.md) | 93 | BSD-3-Clause | Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS | | 2 | [ZeroTier](https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/zerotier.md) | 93 | MPL-2.0 | Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS | | 3 | [Firezone](https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/firezone.md) | 85 | Apache-2.0 + Elastic License 2.0 | Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS | | 4 | [Headscale](https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/headscale.md) | 81 | BSD-3-Clause | Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS | | 5 | [Netmaker](https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/netmaker.md) | 78 | Apache-2.0 | Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS | | 6 | [OpenZiti](https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/openziti.md) | 78 | Apache-2.0 | Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS | | 7 | [Tailscale](https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/tailscale.md) | 78 | BSD-3-Clause | Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS | | 8 | [Defguard](https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/defguard.md) | 70 | AGPL-3.0 (core), Proprietary (enterprise module) | Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS | | 9 | [innernet](https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/innernet.md) | 62 | MIT | Linux, macOS | | 10 | [WireGuard](https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/wireguard.md) | 40 | GPL-2.0 | Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS | Alt Score = Verified coverage (90%) + Visibility (10%). See https://altcatalog.com/how-alt-score-works/ ## Feature comparison Legend: Yes / No / Partial / ? (not verified). | Mesh VPNs checklist | Nebula | NetBird | ZeroTier | Firezone | Headscale | Netmaker | |---|---|---|---|---|---|---| | Pricing model | OSS + paid hosting | OSS + paid hosting | Freemium | Freemium | Free | OSS + paid hosting | | Starts at | ? | Free | Free | $5/user/mo | Free | $2/connection/month | | License | MIT | BSD-3-Clause | MPL-2.0 | Apache-2.0 + Elastic License 2.0 | BSD-3-Clause | Apache-2.0 | | Platforms | Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, Android | Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, Android | Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, Android | Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, Android | Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, Android | Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, Android | | WireGuard-based | No | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | | Self-hostable control plane | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | | NAT traversal | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | | Exit nodes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | | ACLs / access rules | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | ? | | SSO integration | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | | Device limit (free tier) | ? | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | | MagicDNS-style naming | Yes | Yes | Yes | Partial | Yes | Partial | | Subnet routing | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | | Open source clients | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Partial | Partial | | Audit published | ? | ? | Yes | Partial | ? | ? | | Mobile support | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | ## Sources Sources for Nebula. Each alternative is sourced on its own page. - **License**: MIT — (verified 2026-07-30) - Quote: “MIT License” - **Platforms**: Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, Android — (verified 2026-07-30) - Quote: “Nebula is portable, and runs on Linux, OSX, Windows, iOS, and Android.” - **Pricing model**: OSS + paid hosting — (verified 2026-07-30) - Note: Nebula itself is free, self-hosted, MIT-licensed software. Defined Networking is a separate company selling managed hosting built on Nebula; its own pricing is not sourced here since defined.net is ou - Quote: “Managed Nebula from Defined Networking handles all of this for you.” - **Status**: active — (verified 2026-07-30) - Note: Labels Release v1.11.0 (dated 2026-07-23 per the release page timestamp) as the current release, one week before this research was conducted. - Quote: “Latest” - **WireGuard-based**: No — (verified 2026-07-30) - Note: Uses its own protocol built on the Noise Protocol Framework, not WireGuard. - Quote: “Nebula is a mutually authenticated peer-to-peer software-defined network based on the Noise Protocol Framework.” - **Self-hostable control plane**: Yes — (verified 2026-07-30) - Quote: “Running a lighthouse requires very few compute resources, and you can easily use the least expensive option from a cloud hosting provider.” - **NAT traversal**: Yes — (verified 2026-07-30) - Quote: “Discovery nodes (aka lighthouses) allow individual peers to find each other and optionally use UDP hole punching to establish connections from behind most firewalls or NATs.” - **Exit nodes**: Yes — (verified 2026-07-30) - Note: Achieved via the unsafe_routes feature routing a 0.0.0.0/0 default route through a gateway host, rather than a dedicated 'exit node' toggle. - Quote: “it supports 0.0.0.0/0 unsafe_routes, allowing for more precise routing decisions based on the packet tags” - **ACLs / access rules**: Yes — (verified 2026-07-30) - Quote: “Nebula security group configuration” - **SSO integration**: No — (verified 2026-07-30) - Note: OSS Nebula authenticates hosts via self-issued certificates, not centralized SSO. The separate commercial Defined Networking product advertises desktop SSO for certificate issuance, but that is a dist - Quote: “Nebula uses certificates to assert a node's IP address, name, and membership within user-defined groups.” - **MagicDNS-style naming**: Yes — (verified 2026-07-30) - Note: Lighthouse DNS dynamically resolves nebula hostnames, comparable to MagicDNS-style naming in other mesh VPNs. - Quote: “serve_dns optionally starts a dns listener that responds to various queries and can even be delegated to for resolution” - **Subnet routing**: Yes — (verified 2026-07-30) - Quote: “Unsafe routes allows you to route traffic over nebula to non-nebula nodes” - **Open source clients**: Yes — (verified 2026-07-30) - Note: Desktop/server client is this same MIT-licensed repo; the mobile app source is published in a separate DefinedNet/mobile_nebula repo linked directly from the official README. - Quote: “Mobile ([source code](https://github.com/DefinedNet/mobile_nebula))” - **Mobile support**: Yes — (verified 2026-07-30) - Quote: “Nebula is portable, and runs on Linux, OSX, Windows, iOS, and Android.” --- Ranked by verified data, never by who paid. https://altcatalog.com/trust/