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Networking · head to head

Nebula vs Timeplus

Nebula logo

Nebula

Networking

Certificate based overlay network from Slack, with identity and firewall rules carried in the certificate

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
Timeplus logo

Timeplus

Databases

Streaming SQL engine built on ClickHouse internals, shipping as one small binary

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Each has a real cost: Nebula the open source project has no user interface, no enrolment workflow and no revocation service, so certificate issuing, distribution and expiry become scripts you write and then have to keep working.; Timeplus proton, the free version, is single-node by design, so any requirement for high availability or horizontal scale forces the commercial licence; the open source edition is a trial in practical terms.
  • They diverge on capability: Nebula covers Certificate carried identity, Timeplus covers Streaming SQL.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Nebula and Timeplus actually diverge.

Attributes where Nebula and Timeplus differ
AttributeNebulaTimeplus
Pricing modelOpen source, no licence feePer month for cloud, quoted for self-hosted
PlatformsLinux, macOS, Windows, iOS, Android, FreeBSDLinux, macOS, Docker, Kubernetes, Web
CategoryNetworkingDatabases

Identical on both: starting price (Free), free tier (Yes), user rating (Not yet rated).

What each one covers

Drawn from each product's published feature list. An absence here means we hold no record of it - not that the product lacks it.

Only in Nebula

  • Certificate carried identity
  • Group based host firewall
  • Lighthouse discovery
  • Noise protocol encryption
  • Unsafe routes
  • Managed option

Only in Timeplus

  • Streaming SQL
  • Unified streaming and historical
  • ClickHouse-based engine
  • Single binary deployment
  • External streams
  • Materialised views

What people use each for

The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.

Nebula

  • Flattening a network across several clouds and datacentres without VPC peering or route tablesnot Timeplus
  • Very large fleets where a central policy service on the connection path is unacceptablenot Timeplus
  • Environments that already run an internal certificate authority and want the network to use itnot Timeplus
  • Replacing per host iptables rules with policy written against roles that follow the hostnot Timeplus

Timeplus

  • Real-time alerting on Kafka topics where standing up a Flink cluster is more work than the use case justifiesnot Nebula
  • Fraud or anomaly detection that must join a live event stream against recent history in one querynot Nebula
  • Streaming ETL from Kafka or MySQL change data capture into ClickHouse without writing Javanot Nebula
  • A small data team that needs continuous aggregation but has no platform engineers to operate JVM infrastructurenot Nebula

Where each one falls short

Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.

Nebula

  • The open source project has no user interface, no enrolment workflow and no revocation service, so certificate issuing, distribution and expiry become scripts you write and then have to keep working.
  • Revoking a compromised host means distributing a blocklist entry to every other host and reloading them, which is a fleet wide operation rather than a click, and easy to get wrong under pressure.
  • Changing a host group membership means reissuing and redeploying its certificate, so policy changes are a deployment rather than a configuration edit.
  • There is no identity provider integration or single sign on in the open source version, so it maps well to servers and badly to a fleet of user laptops.
  • NAT traversal is best effort and hosts behind symmetric NAT need a relay configured deliberately, so connectivity failures show up as intermittent rather than immediate and are awkward to diagnose.

Timeplus

  • Proton, the free version, is single-node by design, so any requirement for high availability or horizontal scale forces the commercial licence; the open source edition is a trial in practical terms.
  • It is a young project against Apache Flink’s decade of production history, so the hiring pool, the connector library and the body of known failure modes are all much smaller.
  • Inheriting ClickHouse internals also inherits ClickHouse constraints: memory-hungry queries, awkward updates and a SQL dialect that is not portable to other engines.
  • Exactly-once semantics and state recovery guarantees are less battle-tested than Flink checkpointing, which matters if the pipeline moves money.
  • Cloud pricing is by provisioned instance size rather than usage, so a bursty workload pays for peak capacity around the clock or has to be resized by hand.

Pricing, plan by plan

Nebula

Free
  • NebulaFree
    • Full functionality under the MIT licence
    • No host limit
    • You operate the certificate authority and lighthouses
  • Defined Networking$undefined/month
    • Hosted control plane and enrolment
    • Managed certificate lifecycle and revocation
    • Policy and DNS interface

Timeplus

Free
  • Timeplus ProtonFree
    • Apache 2.0 licence
    • Single node only
    • Full streaming SQL engine
  • Timeplus Cloud$199/month
    • One to thirty-two CPUs
    • 4 GB to 128 GB memory
    • From 250 GB SSD storage
  • Self-hosted or BYOC$undefined/year
    • Multi-node clustering
    • Kubernetes or bare metal
    • Customisable compute and storage

Which should you pick?

Choose Nebula if

  • You need certificate carried identity.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on Linux, macOS, Windows, iOS, Android, FreeBSD.
  • You also want group based host firewall.
Nebula review

Choose Timeplus if

  • You need streaming sql.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on Linux, macOS, Docker, Kubernetes, Web.
  • You also want unified streaming and historical.
Timeplus review

Questions people ask

Is Nebula or Timeplus better?
Neither clearly leads. Nebula starts at Free and Timeplus at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Nebula or Timeplus?
Nebula starts at Free and Timeplus at Free.
Does Nebula or Timeplus run on more platforms?
Nebula runs on Linux, macOS, Windows, iOS, Android, FreeBSD. Timeplus runs on Linux, macOS, Docker, Kubernetes, Web.
Can I use Nebula for free?
Both have a free tier, so you can try either at no cost before committing.
What is Nebula best used for?
Nebula is most often used for flattening a network across several clouds and datacentres without vpc peering or route tables, very large fleets where a central policy service on the connection path is unacceptable, environments that already run an internal certificate authority and want the network to use it, replacing per host iptables rules with policy written against roles that follow the host. Of those, flattening a network across several clouds and datacentres without vpc peering or route tables and very large fleets where a central policy service on the connection path is unacceptable are not what Timeplus is typically brought in for.
What can Nebula do that Timeplus cannot?
Nebula covers Certificate carried identity, Group based host firewall, Lighthouse discovery, Noise protocol encryption. Timeplus covers Streaming SQL, Unified streaming and historical, ClickHouse-based engine, Single binary deployment.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Nebula: Does it use WireGuard?

No. Nebula predates the common WireGuard mesh tools and uses the Noise protocol framework with its own certificate format.

Timeplus: Is Timeplus open source?

The core engine, Timeplus Proton, is Apache 2.0. Timeplus Enterprise and Cloud are commercial.

Nebula: Can I run it without Defined Networking?

Yes, entirely. Defined Networking sells the control plane conveniences, not the network itself.

Timeplus: What is the difference from Flink?

Timeplus is one binary with SQL as the only interface; Flink is a JVM cluster with a Java and SQL API and far more operational surface.

Nebula: How do I revoke a host?

Add its certificate fingerprint to the blocklist in the configuration of the other hosts and reload them. There is no online revocation check.

Timeplus: Can Proton run in production?

It can, but it is single-node only, so there is no high availability without the commercial edition.

Nebula: Is it a good fit for laptops?

Less so than the identity provider based tools. There is no single sign on, so every laptop needs a certificate issued and renewed by whatever process you build.

Timeplus: How much is the cloud?

From 199 US dollars a month, sized by CPU and memory, with a fourteen day trial.

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