Best Free & Open Source Alternatives to ExpressVPN

Headscale is a self-hosted implementation of the Tailscale control server, enabling users to operate their own private WireGuard-based overlay network without relying on Tailscale's managed infrastructure. It handles key exchange, IP assignment, and NAT traversal coordination for a tailnet, and works with the standard Tailscale clients across Linux, macOS, Windows, iOS, and Android.

Because Headscale runs on your own hardware, all coordination data stays within your environment. Configuration is managed through a simple YAML file, and the project provides official Docker images for straightforward deployment. It is designed to support a single tailnet per instance, making it well-suited to personal labs, homelab setups, and small teams.

Headscale is aimed at self-hosters, hobbyists, and small organisations who want the seamless, zero-config VPN connectivity of Tailscale while maintaining full control over the control plane and keeping all network metadata on their own infrastructure.

OpenVPN is an open-source VPN solution that provides secure, encrypted connections over untrusted networks such as the Internet.
It uses the SSL/TLS protocol for key exchange and supports a wide range of configurations, including:

• Point-to-point and site-to-site connections
• Remote access for individual clients
• Bridging or routing configurations
• IPv4 and IPv6 support

Key Features

• Strong Security: Uses industry-standard encryption (OpenSSL library) to protect data.
• Cross-Platform: Runs on Linux, Windows, macOS, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, Solaris, and more.
• Highly Configurable: Supports TCP or UDP transport, multiple tunneling modes, and fine-grained access controls.
• Authentication Options: Password, certificate-based, multi-factor authentication, and smart cards.
• Extensible: Integration with scripts, plugins, and management interfaces.

Typical Use Cases

• Securely connecting remote employees to a company network
• Linking branch offices over the public internet
• Protecting sensitive data while using public Wi-Fi
• Bypassing censorship and geo-restrictions

Obscura VPN is an open-source VPN built by Sovereign Engineering around a simple architectural claim: a VPN that can log your activity is one you have to trust, so Obscura was designed so that no single party can both identify you and see what you do. Its client apps, Rust VPN library, and CLI are fully open source, so the privacy claims can be verified against code.

It works as a two-party relay: your device connects over QUIC to Obscuras relays, which forward the encrypted WireGuard tunnel to an independent exit operator (Mullvad). Obscuras servers cannot decrypt the packets because they are encrypted to the exit hops key, and the exit servers never see your real IP because Obscura NATs it away. Even a no-logs policy becomes irrelevant when logging is impossible by design.

The QUIC transport makes traffic resemble ordinary HTTP/3 connections, which makes it markedly harder for censors and firewalls to detect or block than classic VPN protocols - one reason Obscura also competes with commercial VPNs on censorship-resistant access. Accounts are just randomized numbers, payments can be made with Bitcoin Lightning or Monero, and the app even displays the exit hops WireGuard public key so you can verify it against Mullvads published list.

Compared to commercial VPNs like NordVPN, ExpressVPN, or Surfshark, Obscura is not self-hostable and the service itself costs $8/month, but it removes the trust requirement those services rely on: there is no entity that holds both your identity and your browsing activity. Native apps exist for macOS, iOS, Android, Windows, and Linux, and a WireGuard compatibility mode covers routers and other platforms without native clients.

SelfPrivacy is a free, open-source app that sets up and manages your own personal server in the cloud. Install it on Android, Linux, or Windows, give it API tokens for your hosting, DNS, and backup providers, and it provisions a NixOS server for you and deploys a suite of private services on your own domain: an email server with webmail, Nextcloud file storage, a Bitwarden-compatible password manager (Vaultwarden), Forgejo Git hosting, Jitsi Meet video calls, an OpenConnect VPN server, and more.

The project is built on a zero-trust principle: the SelfPrivacy developers never have access to your server, no registration or telemetry is required to use the app, and backups are encrypted before they leave your machine. Because the server is a standard NixOS machine, you keep full control — the docs even explain how to get root access via SSH, and the app can generate a recovery key so you can reconnect if you lose your device.

Where a stack of subscriptions like Google Drive, Gmail, Dropbox, Zoom, LastPass, or NordVPN puts your data in someone else's cloud, SelfPrivacy deploys open-source replacements on hardware you rent and control. The app is free; you only pay for the underlying infrastructure — roughly $5 per month for hosting (about $8 at Hetzner for a 2 vCPU / 2 GB machine), $8–15 per year for a domain, and a few dollars for backup storage. Setup is guided end to end in the app, so no console work or prior sysadmin experience is needed.