DefGuard: Enterprise, fast, secure VPN & SSO platform with support for hardware keys and 2FA/MFA
DefGuard is a self-hosted identity management and authentication tool. Enterprise, fast, secure VPN & SSO platform with support for hardware keys and 2FA/MFA.
Why self-host DefGuard
Running DefGuard yourself means you control the data, the uptime policy, and the upgrade schedule. That is a different relationship with software than subscribing to a hosted service.
What it does
DefGuard falls into the Identity Management, Authentication, VPN, 2FA category of self-hosted software. It is designed to be deployed on your own infrastructure, whether that is a home server, a VPS, or a local machine running Docker.
Community traction
The project has 875 stars on GitHub, which is a reasonable proxy for how widely it is used. Active repositories tend to ship bug fixes faster and have better documentation than projects that stall after the initial release.
Deployment
Getting DefGuard running usually takes under an hour if you have a working Docker setup. The official documentation covers the basic deployment steps.
Alternatives
If DefGuard does not fit your needs, common alternatives include Okta, Authy, Google Authenticator. The self-hosted versions of these tools often differ in resource requirements and feature focus, so it is worth testing the one that matches your workload.
Maturity
The current version is 0.11.0, which means the project is still pre-1.0. That is not a disqualifier, but it is worth checking the changelog before upgrading in a setup where stability matters.
License
It is licensed under Apache-2.0, making it freely available for personal and commercial use.
Links
If the use case fits, DefGuard is a solid choice. Most of the complexity is in the initial deploy, and the day-to-day operation is low maintenance.