HOPR’s decentralized, incentivized mixnet obscures all metadata, including IP addresses, making it impossible to tell anything about who is communicating and what data they’re sending. Node operators receive HOPR tokens rewards with staking options. No downloads required, several dApps are available.
Official website hoprnet.org
Our take
HOPR is the most serious privacy engineering in this group: a mixnet that hides metadata and IP addresses, rather than only the content, which addresses the exact thing ordinary VPNs leak. The honest catch is that it is small, research-grade, and incentivized with tokens, so it is far from a plug-and-play consumer VPN. Watch it as one of the more credible attempts at real metadata protection, but do not expect it to replace your everyday connection yet.
GitHub at a glance
hoprnet/hoprnet
Stars
255
+ 2 this week
Last commit
1d ago
healthy
License
GPL-3.0
Latest release
v3.0.2
3mo ago
Stars, last 10d
Listed in
HOPR alternatives
Safing Privacy Network - SPN SPN enables users to select different identities (IP addresses) for each app. Certain apps and domains can be excluded as well. Volunteers are able to host a community node but…
Sentinel Interesting project in an early stage. Instead of wasting server resources, this new protocol is using peer-to-peer user nodes to create a fully functioning bandwith network.
KelVPN No iOS app yet. Node operators get rewarded with $KEL tokens with staking options.
Mysterium VPN Unlimited devices, affordable price, 135 countries and over 16,000 servers. No email sign up required.
Orchid VPN No Windows client available. The Orchid protocol uses WebRTC. Onion-routed multi-hop connections.
Tachyon VPN No Windows client available, but coming soon. Number of nodes in Jan 2023: 1128. Source . Node operators receive IPX token rewards with staking options.
HOPR license, in plain English
GPL-3.0 Strong copyleft
Free to use and modify, but anything you distribute that is built on it must also be open under the same license.
Permits
- Commercial use
- Modification
- Distribution
- Patent use
- Private use
Requires
- Disclose source
- Same license
- State changes
- License and copyright notice
Does not provide
- Liability cover
- Warranty
Why it matters: Strong copyleft keeps every distributed version open. A vendor cannot fold this into a closed product and ship it without releasing their changes.
Plain-language summary of the project's license, not legal advice. Read the full text for the exact terms.