Firezone vs wg-easy: Which VPN Should You Use?
Quick Verdict
wg-easy is the better choice for most self-hosters. It’s fully self-hosted, dead simple, and gives you a working WireGuard VPN server with a web UI in under five minutes. Firezone is a different animal — a zero-trust access platform with granular policies, SSO integration, and multi-site management, but its control plane is cloud-hosted. Pick wg-easy for straightforward remote access. Pick Firezone when you need real access control policies.
Overview
wg-easy is a web-based management UI for WireGuard. It wraps the standard WireGuard kernel module with a clean interface for creating, disabling, and revoking VPN clients. One container, no database, no external dependencies. Over 12 million Docker pulls.
Firezone is a zero-trust remote access platform built on WireGuard. It uses a split architecture: the admin portal and control plane are managed by Firezone’s cloud service, while Gateways (the data plane) run on your infrastructure. It supports granular per-resource access policies, identity provider integration, and automatic NAT traversal.
These tools solve fundamentally different problems. wg-easy gives you a VPN tunnel. Firezone gives you a policy engine that happens to use WireGuard tunnels.
Feature Comparison
| Feature | Firezone | wg-easy |
|---|---|---|
| Self-hosted control plane | No (cloud-managed) | Yes (fully self-hosted) |
| Web UI | Cloud portal (app.firezone.dev) | Self-hosted web UI |
| WireGuard-based | Yes | Yes |
| Per-resource access policies | Yes | No (full network access) |
| SSO / Identity providers | Yes (Google, Okta, SAML, OIDC) | No |
| Multi-site support | Yes (multiple Sites with Gateways) | No (single server) |
| High availability | Yes (multiple Gateways per Site) | No (single instance) |
| Client apps | Official apps for all platforms | Standard WireGuard clients |
| NAT traversal | Automatic (with relay fallback) | Manual port forwarding required |
| Setup complexity | Medium (account + token + gateway) | Low (single container) |
| Database required | No (for gateway; cloud handles state) | No |
| Open source | Yes (Apache 2.0) | Yes (custom license, free for non-commercial) |
| Free tier | Yes (up to 6 users) | Unlimited (self-hosted) |
Installation Complexity
wg-easy wins here by a wide margin. You create a docker-compose.yml, set your WAN hostname and password, and run docker compose up -d. The entire setup takes one file and one command. The only infrastructure requirement is UDP port 51820 forwarded to your server.
Firezone requires multiple steps: create an account on app.firezone.dev, set up a Site, generate a Gateway token, deploy the Gateway container, then configure Resources and Policies through the cloud portal. The Gateway container itself is simple, but the overall setup involves more moving parts and a dependency on Firezone’s cloud service.
If your router supports port forwarding, wg-easy is running in under five minutes. Firezone takes 15-20 minutes including the portal configuration.
Performance and Resource Usage
Both use WireGuard under the hood, so raw tunnel performance is identical — WireGuard adds sub-millisecond latency overhead.
wg-easy: ~50 MB RAM, negligible CPU. Everything runs locally. Traffic flows directly between clients and the server.
Firezone Gateway: ~50-128 MB RAM, negligible CPU. Traffic flows peer-to-peer between clients and gateways. If direct connectivity isn’t possible, traffic routes through Firezone’s relay servers, adding latency. The control plane connection to api.firezone.dev uses minimal bandwidth.
In practice, wg-easy has more predictable performance because there’s no relay fallback or control plane dependency. Firezone’s peer-to-peer design can be faster in some topologies (no central VPN server bottleneck) but adds complexity.
Community and Support
| Metric | Firezone | wg-easy |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ~9,400 | ~17,000+ |
| Docker pulls | Not published | 12M+ |
| Update frequency | Active (weekly releases) | Active |
| Documentation | Comprehensive (firezone.dev/kb) | Good README + community wiki |
| Community | Discourse forum, GitHub | GitHub issues |
| Commercial support | Yes (paid plans) | No |
wg-easy has the larger community footprint. Firezone has more structured commercial support and documentation.
Use Cases
Choose wg-easy If…
- You want a simple VPN for remote access to your home lab
- Full self-hosting with zero cloud dependencies matters to you
- You’re the only user or have a small group of trusted users
- You want standard WireGuard clients (no vendor app required)
- You prefer minimal infrastructure (one container, no accounts)
- You’re comfortable with port forwarding
Choose Firezone If…
- You need per-resource access control (user A can access service X but not Y)
- You have an identity provider (Google Workspace, Okta, Azure AD) and want SSO
- You manage multiple sites or locations
- You need high availability with automatic failover between gateways
- NAT traversal without port forwarding is important (CGNAT, restrictive networks)
- You’re running a team or small business and need audit logs
Final Verdict
For the typical self-hoster running a home lab, wg-easy is the right answer. It does one thing — WireGuard VPN with a web UI — and does it perfectly. No accounts, no cloud dependencies, no policies to configure. Port forward UDP 51820, set a password, and you’re connected from anywhere.
Firezone makes sense for a different audience: teams, small businesses, or anyone who needs the words “zero trust” in their security posture. The policy engine is genuinely useful when you have multiple users with different access needs. The SSO integration eliminates password management. Multi-site gateways with automatic failover solve real operational problems.
The deal-breaker for many self-hosters will be Firezone’s cloud-hosted control plane. If you want everything on your own metal, Firezone isn’t an option. If you’re comfortable with the split architecture (and the free tier covers your needs), it’s a capable platform.
For a fully self-hosted zero-trust alternative, look at NetBird — it offers similar policy-based access with a self-hostable control plane.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I migrate from wg-easy to Firezone?
There’s no direct migration path. Firezone uses its own WireGuard key management and tunnel establishment. You’d need to set up Firezone from scratch and re-onboard all clients with the Firezone client app.
Does Firezone work with standard WireGuard clients?
No. Firezone requires its own client apps because of the zero-trust architecture — clients need to authenticate, receive policies, and negotiate ephemeral keys through the control plane. wg-easy works with any standard WireGuard client.
Which is better for a home lab?
wg-easy. You get WireGuard VPN access with a clean web UI, no cloud dependency, and standard WireGuard clients on all your devices. Firezone adds complexity that most home lab users don’t need.
Can I run both simultaneously?
Yes. They use different WireGuard interfaces and don’t conflict. You could run wg-easy for personal access and Firezone for shared team access on the same server.
What if Firezone’s cloud service goes down?
Existing Firezone tunnels continue working. New connections and policy changes won’t work until the control plane recovers. wg-easy has no such dependency — if your server is up, VPN works.
Related
Get self-hosting tips in your inbox
New guides, comparisons, and setup tutorials — delivered weekly. No spam.