Pritunl

Zachary Huff developed Pritunl to replace complex server configuration files and per-user licensing with a distributed, web-managed VPN gateway. Built on OpenVPN and WireGuard with MongoDB for coordination, it combines multi-datacenter network virtualization with browser administration. Today, that origin means infrastructure teams can stand up a remote-access gateway on their own cloud instances without surrendering traffic telemetry or paying per-seat fees.

Where Pritunl fits

Commercial remote-access platforms like OpenVPN Access Server, Tailscale, and Perimeter 81 monetize through seat-based pricing. OpenVPN Access Server charges per concurrent connection beyond two test devices, while hosted zero-trust networks bill five to fifteen dollars per user monthly. For teams connecting dozens of developers, staging environments, and CI runners to private VPCs, per-seat licensing turns network access into a compounding bill. Pritunl anchors its cost to the server rather than the seat. The open-source Community edition imposes no software fees for unlimited client profiles on a single host, while the commercial Enterprise tier charges a flat seventy dollars monthly per server for multi-host failover and single sign-on.

Choosing Pritunl over managed zero-trust overlays trades operational convenience for financial predictability and network sovereignty. Hosted software-defined perimeters eliminate server maintenance by operating cloud control planes, but they retain endpoint metadata and can lock teams into proprietary clients. Pritunl gives DevOps teams total ownership over network routes, encryption keys, and traffic paths across AWS, Google Cloud, or bare metal. In exchange, teams take on the maintenance of the host operating system and its required MongoDB datastore.

What it does well

• Dual-protocol support lets administrators run OpenVPN for legacy clients alongside WireGuard for high-throughput developer connections on a single host.
• Flat per-server pricing with unlimited users and devices eliminates seat management friction when onboarding contractors and automated services.
• Web-based administration simplifies multi-organization access control, IP pool allocation, and route pushing without editing configuration files.
• Native multi-factor authentication supports standard TOTP authenticators and YubiKey OTP tokens directly in the Community edition.