ZeroTier Licensing Changes (2025)
2 points · Open discussionzerotier
ZeroTierOne
C++2013–2026
zerotier / ZeroTierOne
ZeroTierOne
A Smart Ethernet Switch for Earth
33Distinct people
50Mentions
0Explicit recommenders
17.3KGitHub stars
What to know before exploring
What it is
A Smart Ethernet Switch for Earth
GitHub
Where it is used
No documented product use was verified in the last source check.
What people are saying
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Also in these discussions
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This week on Hacker News
Nov 7–Nov 14 UTC · Direct repository links and separately labeled related project stories. Indexed through 11/14/2026, 3:56:07 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 year50 dated mentions
Observed mentions: 2013-07-05 14:07:45 UTC to 2026-02-25 15:40:18 UTC.
* 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
| Period | Start (UTC) | End (exclusive, UTC) | Mentions | Submissions | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2013 | 2013-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2014-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2 | 1 | 1 |
| 2014 | 2014-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2015-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 10 | 0 | 10 |
| 2015 | 2015-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 4 | 0 | 4 |
| 2016 | 2016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 4 | 2 | 2 |
| 2017 | 2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2 | 0 | 2 |
| 2018 | 2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 3 | 1 | 2 |
| 2019 | 2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 4 | 0 | 4 |
| 2020 | 2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 6 | 0 | 6 |
| 2021 | 2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 10 | 1 | 9 |
| 2022 | 2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 3 | 0 | 3 |
| 2023 | 2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2024 | 2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| 2025 | 2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2026 (partial) | 2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2027-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 1 | 0 |
From the project README
An excerpt from the repository, fetched Nov 13, 2026.
Read the project’s introduction
ZeroTier - Global Area Networking
Quick Links
ZeroTier Documentation - Start here for downloads, installation, and usage
How to build - Build instructions and platform requirements
Corporate Site
Downloads
Service API Reference
Network Controller
Commercial Support
License Information
About
ZeroTier is a smart programmable Ethernet switch for planet Earth. It allows all networked devices, VMs, containers, and applications to communicate as if they all reside in the same physical data center or cloud region.
This is accomplished by combining a cryptographically addressed and secure peer-to-peer network (termed VL1) with an Ethernet emulation layer somewhat similar to VXLAN (termed VL2). Our VL2 Ethernet virtualization layer includes advanced enterprise SDN features like fine grained access control rules for network micro-segmentation and security monitoring.
All ZeroTier traffic is encrypted end-to-end using secret keys that only you control. Most traffic flows peer-to-peer, though we offer free (but slow) relaying for users who cannot establish peer-to-peer connections.
Apps for Android and iOS are available for free in the Google Play and Apple app stores.
For repository layout, build instructions, platform requirements, and information about running ZeroTier, see build.md.
License
See LICENSE-MPL.txt for all code in node/, osdep/. service/, and everywhere else except ext/ and nonfree/.
See nonfree/LICENSE.md for all non-free ("source available") portions of this repository.
Code in ext/ is external code included for build convenience or backward compatibility and retains its original license.
Read the full README on GitHubWhat Hacker News says
50 sourcesTailscale uses Go https://tailscale.com/security#tailscale-is-written-in-go which might explain the larger sizes.
A cursory look through https://github.com/zerotier/ZeroTierOne shows more C++ and some Rust. Not sure how much static linking is involved here.
In The Cheapest NASI'm fine with companies making profit off of protocols, as long as their code is open source like https://github.com/firezone/firezone or https://github.com/zerotier/ZeroTierOne Tailscale seems great now, but its risky to trust their closed source for this type of service.
In Tailscale Funnel"Is there a way to totally bypass ZeroTier's servers?" - https://github.com/zerotier/ZeroTierOne/issues/610
Bug was "[closed] since it's already on the road map" (???) for 1.4, but after 1.4 release it is still unclear if it is even possible.
In Tailscale’s human-scale networks are still controlled by Google and MicrosoftIt seems to be a wordpress site, so you can geht the archive for a month like this https://www.zerotier.com/2021/06/
That said, there is no blog post from June and there also was no release arouns that time: https://github.com/zerotier/ZeroTierOne/releases
In Incident Response to September 20th 2021> It defaults to being dependent on a closed-source proprietary backend coordination server
Isn't its source[0] available?
> This is our reference controller implementation and is the same one we use to power our own hosted services at my.zerotier.com.
[0]: https://github.com/zerotier/ZeroTierOne/tree/master/controll...
In ZeroTier – Global Area NetworkingZeroTier – Global Area Networking
76 points · Open discussion> For a FOSS solution (now that ZeroTier no longer is one), there’s Nebula
Please do note that zerotier is still source available (with 2025 - 5 years? Transition to apace Foss license):
https://github.com/zerotier/ZeroTierOne/blob/master/LICENSE....
So, AFAIK you can self-host, audit and patch.
(lots of great discussion on Foss vs non-foss, pragmatism etc in this thread, to which I can't add much)
I guess nebula is: https://github.com/slackhq/nebula
Anyone tried it vs zerotier/wireguard/tailscale? I must admit building on wireguard is a major draw for tailscale.
In Taildrop was kind of easyZeroTier isn't open source / free software, it's only source-available.
https://github.com/zerotier/ZeroTierOne/blob/master/LICENSE....
I'm personally really tired of fake open source projects like this.
In Taildrop was kind of easyYou can self host ZeroTier controllers, which are the things that control network access. See the controller subfolder of github.com/zerotier/ZeroTierOne.
Roots in ZeroTier are harder to self host right now (it’s getting easier in the future) but they are just dumb STUN/TURN equivalents. They have no power to grant access and can’t even see what networks you join or what you are doing.
In Taildrop was kind of easyThe downvotes of the parent are unjustified; the license's own text literally says:
> The Business Source License (this document, or the "License") is not an Open Source license.
https://github.com/zerotier/ZeroTierOne/blob/a7f652781faedfb...
In VPNCloud: Open-source peer-to-peer VPN written in rust> I think zerotier does UPnP too
I think you're correct. Thanks. My information was from an old blog post from 2014 [1] but they seems to have added support since then: https://github.com/zerotier/ZeroTierOne/commit/bf193dd3. Edited my post.
[1] https://www.zerotier.com/2014/08/25/the-state-of-nat-travers...
In VPNCloud: Open-source peer-to-peer VPN written in rustAs an example, here's ZeroTier moving from GPLv3 to BSL: https://github.com/zerotier/ZeroTierOne/commit/52a166a71#dif...
In PfSense Is Closed SourceShowing the 15 most recent of 50 sources. Enable JavaScript to search and browse every indexed mention.