Netmaker vs Twingate
A detailed comparison to help you choose between Netmaker and Twingate.
Quick Verdict
3.6/5
Netmaker
0 reviews
4.0/5
Twingate
0 reviews
Twingate is rated higher (4.0 vs 3.6). Netmaker is an open source platform for creating and managing WireGuard virtual networks. Self-hosted on your infrastructure. More feature-rich than raw WireGuard with a dashboard and ACL management. Fast TLS-based tunnels with SSO integration — Twingate does not use WireGuard.
Netmaker Self-hosted WireGuard network management | Twingate Zero trust network access — replaces VPN | |
|---|---|---|
| Overview | ||
| Rating | 3.6 (0 reviews) | 4.0 (0 reviews)✓ |
| Pricing model | freemium | freemium |
| Starting price | Free tier available | Free tier available |
| Best for | DevOps teams that want self-hosted WireGuard mesh networking with a dashboard, ACLs, and site-to-site links under their own control | Engineering teams replacing a corporate VPN with per-resource zero trust access, managed as code |
| Features | ||
| IPv6 | ||
| DDoS protection | ||
| Automated backups | ||
| Snapshots | ||
| Managed option | ||
| Bare metal | ||
| GPU available | ||
| S3-compatible | ||
| Hourly billing | ✓ | |
| Free tier | ||
| Tags | ||
| Tags | free tieropen sourceself hostableapi access | free tierteam featuresssomobile app |
| Visit Netmaker → | Visit Twingate → | |
Netmaker
Pros
- + Free community tier is unlimited — self-hosted, Apache 2.0, unlimited networks and devices
- + Per-active-connection billing with hourly proration instead of idle seat licenses
- + Peer-to-peer WireGuard mesh keeps traffic off a central bottleneck; relay and egress gateways cover hard NAT cases
- + Deployment choice: fully self-hosted, Netmaker Cloud, or fully managed by their team
- + Dual-stack IPv4/IPv6 networks, private DNS, OAuth, ACLs; SCIM/SIEM/traffic logs on Business
Cons
- - Very small vendor (single-digit headcount, ~$2.8M raised) behind a critical-path product
- - Pricing page mixes current per-connection rates with legacy platform/network fees and a $99/month plan — billing basis is ambiguous
- - Community tier is community-supported only; SLAs are Enterprise-only
- - Self-hosting the server adds operational overhead (upgrades, database, TLS, monitoring)
- - Native mobile meshing not supported — phones connect via gateway and the standard WireGuard app
Twingate
Pros
- + Genuinely free Starter tier for up to 5 users — not a trial, with 50 Resources and 10 networks
- + Outbound-only connectors: no open inbound ports, no bastion hosts, no published IPs to scan
- + Policy depth: device posture, WebAuthn MFA, SCIM, just-in-time and usage-based access
- + Public component-level status page, documented relay redundancy, published incident write-ups
- + Terraform, Pulumi, Helm and Docker deployment paths — access managed as code
Cons
- - SaaS control plane holds your access policy — disqualifying for fully self-hosted mandates
- - Not an internet VPN; per-resource model requires disciplined resource inventory
- - Geoblocking, static IPs and privileged access are Enterprise-only; DNS filtering is an add-on
- - Per-seat pricing scales linearly and gets expensive with many contractors or seasonal staff
- - Contractual SLAs are custom/Enterprise-only; the 99.99% figure is a reliability claim, not an SLA
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