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ZeroTier One vs headscale: catalog facts
ZeroTier One	headscale
Freemium The software is free and open source under the MPL 2.0. The hosted controller is free up…	Free Free and open source under a BSD 3-clause licence. The Tailscale clients it works with are…
Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, iOS	macOS, Linux, Self-hosted
Ethernet-level networking, so discovery and broadcast protocols work across sites End-to-end encryption with keys you control	Removes the dependency on Tailscale's hosted control server Works with the standard Tailscale clients on every platform
An account with the hosted controller unless you run your own Relayed connections are free but slow when peer-to-peer fails	Aimed at a single tailnet for self-hosters, not a multi-tenant deployment No graphical administration interface in the core project
Downloadable app	Self-hosted
Open source	Open source
License: MPL-2.0	License: BSD-3-Clause
Account needed	No account needed
Works offline	Works offline
Official website Full listing and sources Checked September 21, 2026	Official website Full listing and sources Checked September 21, 2026

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