Pritunl vs Netmaker
A detailed comparison to help you choose between Pritunl and Netmaker.
Quick Verdict
4.0/5
Pritunl
0 reviews
3.6/5
Netmaker
0 reviews
Pritunl is rated higher (4.0 vs 3.6). Pritunl is a self-hosted VPN solution offering user management, multi-protocol support (OpenVPN, WireGuard), and single sign-on capabilities. Built for teams needing controlled network access without vendor lock-in. 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.
Pritunl Open-source VPN server with centralized management and SSO integration | Netmaker Self-hosted WireGuard network management | |
|---|---|---|
| Overview | ||
| Rating | 4.0 (0 reviews)✓ | 3.6 (0 reviews) |
| Pricing model | freemium | freemium |
| Starting price | Free tier available | Free tier available |
| Best for | Teams with Linux operations skills that need self-hosted remote access with SSO, audit logs, and full control over where traffic flows. | DevOps teams that want self-hosted WireGuard mesh networking with a dashboard, ACLs, and site-to-site links under their own control |
| Features | ||
| IPv6 | ||
| DDoS protection | ||
| Automated backups | ||
| Snapshots | ||
| Managed option | ||
| Bare metal | ||
| GPU available | ||
| S3-compatible | ||
| Hourly billing | ✓ | |
| Free tier | ||
| Tags | ||
| Tags | free tieropen sourceself hostableteam featuressso | free tieropen sourceself hostableapi access |
| Visit Pritunl → | Visit Netmaker → | |
Pritunl
Pros
- + Free Community tier with a single server and unlimited users — usable without registration or a credit card
- + Per-server pricing with unlimited users keeps licensing flat as teams grow
- + Real identity integration: SSO providers, LDAP/Active Directory/OAuth sources, TOTP and push second factors
- + Security engineering beyond the category norm: SELinux policies, TPM and Apple Secure Enclave device attestation, dynamic firewall
- + Both OpenVPN and WireGuard clients, plus WireGuard/IPsec site-to-site links and multi-cloud VPC peering
- + All source code public on GitHub since 2013 — auditable and customizable via the Python plugin system
Cons
- - SSO, failover clustering, and site-to-site links are gated behind the $70/month Enterprise tier
- - Self-hosting means you own patching, MongoDB operations, certificate rotation, and incident response
- - No vendor SLA or published support response guarantees in the documentation we reviewed
- - MongoDB becomes part of the VPN trust boundary and needs its own hardening
- - Scale claims (thousands of concurrent users) are vendor statements we could not verify independently
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
Stay in the loop
Get weekly updates on the best new hosting and infrastructure providers, deals, and comparisons.
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.