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Erebus, A VPN client that runs rootless in user space

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HN · launched Jun 3, 2026 · 60 upvotes (top 14%) · 0 views

Niche: virtual private network services · 84 launches, 4 in the last 7 days ▼ -71% · Explore this niche →

Category and tags

  • Security
  • Hardware & robotics
  • Prosumer
  • Not AI
  • Hobby / open-source project

Visit website ↗ Source listing ↗

Could you build this?

Partial Building a cross-platform user-space VPN client without root privileges requires handling virtual networking stacks (like gVisor netstack or lwIP) and local SOCKS5/HTTP proxy hooks.

What it would actually take: The architecture relies on a user-space TCP/IP stack (such as gVisor's netstack in Go or smoltcp in Rust) converting raw IP packets into stream traffic without creating kernel TUN/TAP interfaces. It routes traffic through protocol tunnels (e.g., WireGuard or Shadowsocks) entirely via unprivileged sockets. While an LLM can generate standard proxy boilerplate, debugging edge cases in user-space network translation and DNS interception requires solid networking systems knowledge.

Discussion

No comments on this launch.

Competitors

Other products that read as similar to this one : 2689 launches clear the similarity bar, closest 8 shown.

Attention rank: #304 of 2690 (itself plus its competitors, highest first, normalized so YC and Product Hunt are compared fairly).

Launched 215 days after the earliest competitor.

  • BPB-VPN · github · 2026-11-01 · 121 upvotes · similarity 0.74
  • taillaunch · github · 2026-10-08 · 17 upvotes · similarity 0.70
  • ZedSecure · github · 2026-09-29 · 164 upvotes · similarity 0.66
  • Amyrax-Panel · github · 2026-10-09 · 32 upvotes · similarity 0.65
  • Reminal · hn · 2026-07-01 · 13 upvotes · similarity 0.65
  • FoxyVPN · github · 2026-10-07 · 16 upvotes · similarity 0.64
  • blakcat · github · 2026-09-18 · 23 upvotes · similarity 0.63
  • pia-vpn-security-suite · github · 2026-11-02 · 33 upvotes · similarity 0.62

The niche, labels, vibe code rating and competitor comparison on this page are analysis by Nicheloom. If you use them, please credit nicheloom.com. How you may use our data.