Cardea
SSH bastion server with access control, session recording, and optional TPM-backed key protection.
Description from awesome-selfhosted (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Still maintained? Yes: 19 commits in the last 90 days, latest release v1.9.2 (Sep 2026).
Comparisons in Remote Access: TeamViewer alternatives.
At a glance
Cardea quick facts
- Health score
- 73/100 GOOD
- Stars
- 36
- Last commit
- 16 days ago (Oct 2026)
- Latest release
- v1.9.2, Sep 2026
- Licence
- EUPL-1.2
Top alternatives to Cardea
Why it ranks here
Health score explained
Cardea scores 73/100, #11 of 15 in Remote Access: 19 commits in the last 90 days earn 22.2 of 35 points, the latest release (v1.9.2, 2 months ago) earns 25.0 of 25, 36 stars add 6.3 of 20, an active, unarchived repository keeps 10 and Docker support adds the final 10. That places it in the good band (70 and above). The biggest shortfall is star count, worth 13.7 more points.
Recomputed nightly from the GitHub API. How the score is calculated.
- Commit activity 22.2 / 35
19 commits in 90 days (30+ scores full marks)
- Release recency 25.0 / 25
v1.9.2 released 2 months ago
- Stars biggest shortfall 6.3 / 20
36 stars on GitHub (logarithmic)
- Not archived 10.0 / 10
Repository is active
- Docker support 10.0 / 10
Docker image or Compose file available
Commit activity
- 19
- Last 90 days
- 215
- Last 12 months
- 16 days ago
- Last push
Ranked #11 of 15 tools in Remote Access by health , between MeshCentral (#10) and Onloc (#12) .
Details
| Licence | EUPL-1.2 |
| Platforms | Go, Docker |
| Latest release | v1.9.2 · 2 months ago |
| Stars | 36 |
| Open issues | 1 |
| Docker | Yes |
| Repository | hectorm/cardea ↗ |
Cardea vs its top 5 alternatives
Active tools that share a category with Cardea (Remote Access), scored on the same five terms.
| Tool | Health | Stars | Licence | Last commit |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pangolin | 97 | 23k | AGPL-3.0 | yesterday |
| Warpgate | 96 | 8.2k | Apache-2.0 | yesterday |
| FMD Server | 89 | 223 | GPL-3.0 | today |
| Engity's Bifröst | 88 | 86 | Apache-2.0 | today |
| MeshCentral | 86 | 7.5k | Apache-2.0 | 6 days ago |
| Cardea (this tool) | 73 | 36 | EUPL-1.2 | 16 days ago |
Cardea: common questions
Is Cardea still maintained?
Cardea had 19 commits in the last 90 days and its last push was 16 days ago; the latest tagged release, v1.9.2, is from 2 months ago. Repoly recomputes this nightly.
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