VPN and network security tools cover several distinct jobs, from mesh networking and zero-trust access to reverse proxies, encrypted tunnels, and anonymous sharing. This July 2026 comparison uses ToolVitals data on project health, shipping activity, licensing, openness, and GitHub stars to help readers separate actively maintained options from weaker candidates.
The ranking includes only open or source-visible tools. It orders projects by ToolVitals score, with GitHub stars used as a secondary popularity signal when scores are tied; stars do not override the primary score.
Rankings
| Rank | Tool | Openness | License | Health | Shipping | GitHub Stars | Score | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | NetBird | OSI-approved OSS | AGPL-3.0 | 100 | 100 | 27430 | 100 | 🟢 Excellent |
| 2 | Tailscale | OSI-approved OSS | BSD-3-Clause | 93 | 95 | 34036 | 95 | 🟢 Excellent |
| 3 | Pangolin | OSI-approved OSS | AGPL-3.0 | 90 | 98 | 21769 | 95 | 🟢 Excellent |
| 4 | Firezone | OSI-approved OSS | Apache-2.0 | 92 | 95 | 8730 | 95 | 🟢 Excellent |
| 5 | Headscale | OSI-approved OSS | BSD-3-Clause | 91 | 93 | 41851 | 92 | 🟢 Excellent |
| 6 | Zentinel | OSI-approved OSS | Apache-2.0 | 83 | 92 | 94 | 89 | 🟢 Excellent |
| 7 | Octelium | OSI-approved OSS | AGPL-3.0 | 81 | 88 | 3930 | 88 | 🟢 Excellent |
| 8 | Gravitl | OSI-approved OSS | Apache-2.0 | 79 | 69 | 11690 | 81 | 🟢 Excellent |
| 9 | Rustunnel | OSI-approved OSS | AGPL-3.0 | 84 | 60 | 646 | 80 | 🟢 Excellent |
| 10 | OnionShare | OSI-approved OSS | GPL-3.0 | 77 | 63 | 7033 | 77 | 🟢 Good |
| 11 | i2pd | OSI-approved OSS | BSD-3-Clause | 73 | 71 | 4143 | 77 | 🟢 Good |
| 12 | Firewalla | OSI-approved OSS | AGPL-3.0 | 72 | 69 | 614 | 74 | 🟢 Good |
| 13 | zrok | OSI-approved OSS | Apache-2.0 | 64 | 48 | 4560 | 68 | 🟢 Good |
| 14 | Cylonix | OSI-approved OSS | BSD-3-Clause | 58 | 60 | 40 | 67 | 🟢 Good |
| 15 | TrustTunnel | OSI-approved OSS | Apache-2.0 | 57 | 28 | 3365 | 57 | 🟡 Fair |
| 16 | Algo VPN | OSI-approved OSS | AGPL-3.0 | 54 | 35 | 30328 | 54 | 🟡 Fair |
| 17 | fail2ban | OSI-approved OSS | GPL-2.0 | 64 | 17 | 18213 | 54 | 🟡 Fair |
| 18 | Tunnelmole | OSI-approved OSS | MIT | 36 | 4 | 1879 | 37 | 🔴 Needs Attention |
| 19 | OmniEdge | OSI-approved OSS | Apache-2.0 | 33 | 4 | 895 | 36 | 🔴 Needs Attention |
| 20 | Ockam | OSI-approved OSS | Apache-2.0 | 39 | 0 | 4631 | 35 | 🔴 Needs Attention |
| 21 | OpenCloudflareCDN | OSI-approved OSS | MIT | 28 | 0 | 6 | 32 | 🔴 Needs Attention |
| 22 | FounderBooster | OSI-approved OSS | MIT | 23 | 0 | 4 | 29 | 🔴 Needs Attention |
Top 3 Highlights
NetBird ranks first with a ToolVitals score of 100, backed by perfect health and shipping scores of 100. It is a zero-configuration mesh VPN for business, has 27,430 GitHub stars, and is labeled OSI-approved OSS under AGPL-3.0.
Tailscale ranks second with a ToolVitals score of 95, a health score of 93, and a shipping score of 95. It is labeled OSI-approved OSS under BSD-3-Clause.
Pangolin ranks third and combines identity-aware VPN access with a tunneled reverse proxy. Its ToolVitals score is 95, including a shipping score of 98 and a health score of 90, and it has 21,769 GitHub stars. It is labeled OSI-approved OSS under AGPL-3.0.
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