Octelium: Self-Hosted Zero Trust Access (Fast Look 2026)
Look, zero trust access is what every security team talks about. Yet self-hosting a proper ZTNA stack means Kubernetes, CEL policies, and identity brokers — infrastructure stuff most people don’t want to touch. Octelium, an AGPL-3.0 project with 3,922 stars on GitHub, wraps all that into a single deployable stack that runs on a $6 VPS (affiliate link). Our quick take: Octelium is a standout open-source ZTNA option for teams who need self-hosted secure access without per-user licensing fees. The CLI-based installer handles everything from cluster bootstrap to TLS certificates in one script. And the policy engine supports CEL expressions and OPA-style rules for fine-grained access control — the kind of flexibility you’d expect from Cloudflare Access, but fully self-hosted. ...