My goals which guide the focus of this comparison page are to find a personal VPN client which :
- required : works under Windows and Linux
- required : allow for direct, non-relayed P2P communication between peers
- required : is easy to install under both (which means it needs to either be packaged under Linux or be a binary)
- nice to have : has a good GUI under both OSes
| Name | Supported OS | Linux GUI |
Windows GUI |
Built in DNS |
Open Source | NAT Traversal Method | Linux Packaging | Download | Linux HowTo |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tinc | Win, Linux, Mac |  |
|
|
 |
|
|||
| None |
rpm and deb | Win, Linux, Mac | [How to install and configure tinc on Windows 7 and Ubuntu 10.10 Linux and CentOS 5] | ||||||
| Hamachi 2 | Win, Linux, Mac |
Haguichi
|
|
|
|
They provide a TURN/STUN server | rpm and deb | Linux, Mac | [My Experience Building an Ubuntu Machine#hamachi2] |
| Hamachi 1 | Win, Linux, Mac |
Haguichi
|
|
|
|
They provide a TURN/STUN server | none | Linux Win, Linux, Mac | [My Experience Building an Ubuntu Machine#hamachi1] |
| NeoRouter | Win, Linux, Mac, OpenWRT, more |
NRClientX
|
|
|
|
You run a TURN/STUN server | rpm and deb | Win, Linux, Mac, more | |
| Remobo | Win, Linux, Mac | |
|
|
|
They provide a TURN/STUN server |
rpm, deb and binaries | Win, Linux, Mac | |
| Wippien using wodVPN | Win, Linux | |
|
Jabber XMPP | binaries | Win, Linux | |||
| n2n | Win, Linux, OpenWRT | |
n2nEdgeGUI
|
|
|
You run a TURN/STUN server (they call it a super-node) |
deb (part of Ubuntu Universe repo) and rpm (scripts to build SRPM in distribution) |
Win, Linux | |
| P2PVPN | Win, Linux | |
jar | Win, Linux | |||||
| Leaf | Win, (Linux coming soon?) | |
They provide a STUN server | N/A | Win | ||||
| OpenVPN + Pwnat | Win, Linux |
|
rpm and deb |
Win, Linux |
|||||
| CloudVPN | Win, Linux | |
none | Win, Linux | |||||
| SocialVPN | Win, Linux, Mac | |
Jabber XMPP? (Brunet doing DHT) | binaries | Win, Linux, Mac | ||||
| Gbridge | Win | N/A | |
Jabber XMPP | N/A | Win | |||
| Tunngle | Win | N/A | |
N/A | Win | ||||
|
CIPE |
Linux, Win |
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|
VTun |
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| IPSec |
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GPVE |
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|
VDE |
Notes
Hamachi 2
Cons
- Intermittent inability to establish non-relayed connections
- Low activity development
NeoRouter
Cons
- No way to determine if peers are communicating directly or via relay 1
- No way to assist peers in establishing direct connections by port forwarding
- I’ve been unable to get peers to establish direct connection, everything goes through the relay
- TURN/STUN server daemon runs as root
- No way to disable relay connections
- Unattractive Windows Client UI
Remobo
Cons
- As of version 0.40.10 it’s not possible to automatically login which means that the VPN can’t be established without user intervention at startup
- As of versoin 0.40.10 you can’t tell if a connection is direct or relayed
n2n
Cons
- Windows binary battles with Win7/Vista UAC
- Linux Packages have no init scripts to launch supernode or edge as daemon or configuration files
- Alternative Windows GUI n2nEdgeGUI appears to be running client version 2 whereas there are only linux packages for version 1
- I haven’t been able to get this to work with (Win7 edge) (CentOS 5 supernode) (Ubuntu 10.10 client)