Tailscale vs Headscale: Trade-offs of Self-Hosting a Mesh VPN Control Plane
A DEV Community guide compares the official Tailscale service with Headscale, an open-source, self-hosted replacement for its coordination server. It explains that Headscale only substitutes the control plane, so users still run the official Tailscale clients while peer-to-peer WireGuard tunnels remain unchanged. The article covers deployment needs such as a domain name, valid TLS certificates, a static IP or dynamic DNS, and a reverse proxy, and provides a sample Docker Compose setup. It also outlines how to point Linux and iOS clients at a custom login server and notes that Headscale has no built-in web interface, so administration is done via the command line. The author recommends the free Tailscale tier for most users, reserving Headscale for those who need full control over their network infrastructure.
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