NetBird

NetBird is an open-source zero-trust networking platform from NetBird GmbH in Berlin. Mikhail Bragin and Maycon Santos launched it on GitHub in 2021. It connects laptops, servers and cloud machines in a private network based on WireGuard and replaces classic VPN gateways and hand-written firewall rules.

Features

• Peer-to-peer WireGuard network between devices, managed centrally
• Single sign-on with multi-factor authentication and access control policies that define who may reach which resource
• The whole stack can be self-hosted, or teams use the managed NetBird Cloud
• Open source under the BSD-3 licence, with more than 21,000 stars on GitHub

Good to know

NetBird is a young company. It raised a seed round of 4 million euros in 2024 and a Series A in 2026, and it positions itself as a European alternative to US providers such as Tailscale. It is software for networks of devices that a team manages itself, not a hardware appliance, and it is easier to start with than the firewall products from established network vendors.