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netbirdio
netbird
Go2021–2026
netbirdio / netbird

netbird

NetBird securely connects people, machines and AI agents across any network with one identity-based Zero Trust platform. Powered by peer-to-peer WireGuard®

27Distinct people
39Mentions
0Explicit recommenders
31KGitHub stars
REPOSITORY AT A GLANCE

What to know before exploring

What it is

NetBird securely connects people, machines and AI agents across any network with one identity-based Zero Trust platform. Powered by peer-to-peer WireGuard®

GitHub

Where it is used

No documented product use was verified in the last source check.

What people are saying

No recommendation phrase was found in the indexed comments.

No classified warning is attached to this page. Read the discussions before treating silence as approval.

Also in these discussions

Mentioned in the same Hacker News threads. That is not proof they are substitutes.

This week on Hacker News

Nov 8–Nov 15 UTC · Direct repository links and separately labeled related project stories. Indexed through 11/15/2026, 9:01:12 PM UTC.

No direct repository links were found in the indexed HN discussions over the past seven days. Older discussions are available below.

Mentions over time

HN mentions by year39 dated mentions

Observed mentions: 2021-06-29 06:56:52 UTC to 2026-10-28 05:08:29 UTC.

0369122021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 6 mentions; 2 submissions, 4 comments20212022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 4 mentions; 1 submissions, 3 comments2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 11 mentions; 2 submissions, 9 comments20232024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 3 mentions; 0 submissions, 3 comments2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 9 mentions; 1 submissions, 8 comments2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2027-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 6 mentions; 1 submissions, 5 comments. Incomplete calendar period.2026*

* An incomplete calendar period is marked with an outlined bar. Its count is not directly comparable with a full period.

Counts come from the repository’s dated source evidence. Index cutoff: 2026-11-02 08:16:59 UTC.

View mention counts and date ranges
UTC ranges include their start and exclude their end. Select a period to filter the source evidence.
PeriodStart (UTC)End (exclusive, UTC)MentionsSubmissionsComments
20212021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC624
20222022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC413
20232023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC1129
20242024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC303
20252025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC918
2026 (partial)2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2027-01-01 00:00:00 UTC615

What Hacker News says

11 sources
In the self-hosted space, I've been really enjoying playing around with decentralized encrypted overlay mesh networks like Nebula. Here's the current list of my faves (all Wireguard based). Open-source projects not-quite-prod-ready: - WebMesh: Golang, decentralized nodes https://github.com/webmeshproj - InnerNet: Rust, with subnet ACLs https://github.com/tonarino/innernet - Wesher: Golang, simple mesh with pre-shared key https://github.com/costela/wesher - Wiresmith: Rust, auto-configs clients into a mesh https://github.com/svenstaro/wiresmith Open source projects with company-backed SaaS offerings: - Netbird: Golang, full-fledged solution (desktop clients, DNS, SSO, STUN/TURN, etc) https://github.com/netbirdio/netbird - Netmaker: Golang, full-fledge solution https://github.com/gravitl/netmaker Honorable mention: - SuperHighway84
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- more of a Usenet-inspired darknet, but I love the concept + the author's personal website: https://github.com/mrusme/superhighway84 https://xn--gckvb8fzb.com/superhighway84
In Would we still create Nebula today?
braginini·May 4, 2023Submission

NetBird raises €1.1M – Open-Source P2P WireGuard-based overlay network

Hey HN, This is Misha and Maycon from (finally) sunny Berlin. We built NetBird (https://github.com/netbirdio/netbird) - an open-source, peer-to-peer WireGuard-based private networking platform. You'd probably say: "C'mon, there is a bunch of other similar solutions out there, and one more?" And you'd be right - there are a few, and there will be more. NetBird is not new and has been on the market since 2021 though. We need more solutions like that because private networking is complex. But, luckily it has changed in the past few years, shifting toward simplicity with minimal configuration. Give it two-three years, and most IT pros won't use anything but 0-configuration networks to connect their multi-cloud, office, on-premise, and home environments. Simple connectivity will become a commodity. But how is NetBird different? First, here is
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our story. We started working on p2p networking technology as part of our privacy-focused home storage solution for personal data. The technology was aimed at individuals with no technical knowledge wanting to connect to their home network and access personal data like photos and documents securely end-to-end from anywhere in the world without involving third-party servers that could decrypt traffic. Our hardware went viral in early 2021. Some of you might remember this video from Jeff Geerling: https://youtu.be/ahrdx3TYxZc The pandemic hit the semiconductor market, making it hard to produce hardware at scale, especially for small teams like ours. We realized that our p2p technology could be applied to corporate networks, saving hours for engineering teams. We paved a new direction for the company - a p2p overlay network, no hardware. Second, simple and secure connectivity should be available to every company. Therefore NetBird is 100% open-source and self-hosted, including our network management service. BSD-3. Third, NetBird uses kernel WireGuard and applies advanced NAT traversal techniques using Berkley Packet Filters (BPF) to "punch" a hole in the firewall and automatically configure a p2p connection between the machines, thus making the network fast, efficient, and secure. Check the code out: https://github.com/netbirdio/netbird/tree/main/sharedsock Fourth, you can run userspace NetBird on platforms that don't support kernel WireGuard (e.g., Windows or macOS). The userspace WireGuard is also fast, thanks to recent developments in wireguard-go by Jordan Whited from Tailscale. It consumes more CPU than the kernel version, though. Our implementation: https://github.com/netbirdio/netbird/blob/main/iface/bind/bind.go. Fifth, NetBird uses Interactive Connectivity Establishment (ICE) to discover the best connection path between resources. ICE is commonly used in WebRTC for video conferencing apps like Zoom. Heads up to folks from Pion https://github.com/pion/ice. Sixth, NetBird supports MFA and popular OpenID-compliant Identity Providers (IdP) like MS Azure, Okta, Google, Auth0, Keycloak, Zitadel, Authentik, etc. Available in the self-hosted version as well. Seventh, NetBird is a European company headquartered in Berlin, Germany. Hence this might interest local European companies looking for local networking platforms. Eighth, NetBird joined the CISPA Helmholtz Center for Information Security incubator - the #1 cybersecurity research university. The program gives us direct access to cutting-edge research that we will use to optimize the technology. https://cispa.de/en Bottom line. Our open-source platform aims to simplify the complexity of IT infrastructure and networks through an automated p2p connectivity model that bypasses the gateways commonly used in traditional perimeter-based Virtual Private Networks (VPNs). We will use the funding to develop the technology further and make it available across other platforms, including mobile, serverless, and others. Check it out at https://netbird.io/ Cheers, Misha & Maycon
12 points · Open discussion
Since tailscaled uses the tun/tap driver and thus copies all traffic to userspace (and back), it is extremely inefficient. On my Haswell i5 (plus multiple servers with comparable hardware) the process consumes 40% of CPU time at just 4 MiB/s, and close to 100% at 10-11 MiB/s (with recent sendmmsg/recvmmsg patches¹). This is about ~2-3x worse than similar applications written in highly optimized C, so don't expect any miracles from further optimizations unless they switch to kernel Wireguard (which doesn't seem likely in the nearby future). They claim it's very difficult if not impossible, but this sounds like an issue with their architecture — a similar application from their competitors² has had kernel WireGuard support from the start (no relation, I don't even use it and cannot recommend for or against it). 1: https://tailscale.com/blog
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In Tailscale Funnel now available in beta

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