What is WatchYourLAN used for?

WatchYourLAN is a lightweight, MIT-licensed, self-hosted ARP network scanner written in Go that tracks devices on your LAN with a web GUI and alerts on new hosts. It is a good fit for home lab network inventory and alerting, and detecting unknown devices joining a LAN.

Is WatchYourLAN open source?

Yes. WatchYourLAN is open source under the MIT licence. Its source code is on GitHub at aceberg/WatchYourLAN and is written mainly in Go.

Is WatchYourLAN free?

Yes. WatchYourLAN is open source, so the software itself is free to use.

Can I self-host WatchYourLAN?

Yes. WatchYourLAN can be self-hosted on your own server or infrastructure; there is no official hosted version.

What are some alternatives to WatchYourLAN?

Similar open-source tools in the Networking & VPN category include LAN Orangutan, Nginx Proxy Manager and wg-easy. SaaS products in the same category include Aruba Central, Tailscale and Akamai.

Is WatchYourLAN actively maintained?

The most recent commit to WatchYourLAN was on 10 September 2025, and the latest release is 2.1.4, published on 10 September 2025. The project has 7.6k stars on GitHub.

WatchYourLAN: open-source networking & VPN

About WatchYourLAN

WatchYourLAN is a lightweight network scanner for home labs and small networks, built in Go with a web interface. It scans a chosen network interface for devices using ARP and is meant for self-hosters who want visibility into what is connected to their LAN without running a heavier network monitoring suite.

It keeps a list of all discovered hosts, tracks their online and offline history over time, and sends a notification when a new host appears on the network. Data can be exported to InfluxDB2 or Prometheus to build dashboards in Grafana. It runs as a Docker container in host network mode, or as a native binary on Linux with .deb, .rpm, .apk and .tar.gz packages across several CPU architectures.

WatchYourLAN has no built-in authentication, so the README recommends pairing it with an SSO tool such as Authelia or the author's own ForAuth project, and warns that its port is exposed when run in host network mode. Configuration can be set through a config file, the GUI, or environment variables. It is released under the MIT license.

Key features

ARP-based scanning of devices on the LAN
Online and offline history for each host
Notifications when a new device is found
Export to InfluxDB2 and Prometheus
Web GUI with selectable themes
Docker and native Linux packages

Good fit for

→Home lab network inventory and alerting
→Detecting unknown devices joining a LAN

Built with: Go
Tags: network-scanner; self-hosted; arp-scan; monitoring; homelab; golang; docker; intrusion-detection

WatchYourLAN: questions and answers

What is WatchYourLAN used for?: WatchYourLAN is a lightweight, MIT-licensed, self-hosted ARP network scanner written in Go that tracks devices on your LAN with a web GUI and alerts on new hosts. It is a good fit for home lab network inventory and alerting, and detecting unknown devices joining a LAN.
Is WatchYourLAN open source?: Yes. WatchYourLAN is open source under the MIT licence. Its source code is on GitHub at aceberg/WatchYourLAN and is written mainly in Go.
Is WatchYourLAN free?: Yes. WatchYourLAN is open source, so the software itself is free to use.
Can I self-host WatchYourLAN?: Yes. WatchYourLAN can be self-hosted on your own server or infrastructure; there is no official hosted version.
What are some alternatives to WatchYourLAN?: Similar open-source tools in the Networking & VPN category include LAN Orangutan, Nginx Proxy Manager and wg-easy. SaaS products in the same category include Aruba Central, Tailscale and Akamai.
Is WatchYourLAN actively maintained?: The most recent commit to WatchYourLAN was on 10 September 2025, and the latest release is 2.1.4, published on 10 September 2025. The project has 7.6k stars on GitHub.