Corporate VPN startup Tailscale secures $230 million CAD Series C on back of “surprising” growth
Pennarun confirmed the company had been approached by potential acquirers, but told BetaKit that the company intends to grow as a private company and work towards an initial public offering (IPO).
“Tailscale intends to remain independent and we are on a likely IPO track, although any IPO is several years out,” Pennarun said. “Meanwhile, we have an extremely efficient business model, rapid revenue acceleration, and a long runway that allows us to become profitable when needed, which means we can weather all kinds of economic storms.”
Keep that in mind as you ponder whether and when to switch to self-hosting Headscale.
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Sigh…
And even worse:
Everything in Tailscale is Open Source, except the GUI clients for proprietary OS (Windows and macOS/iOS), and the control server.
everything is open source except half of all things.
Lol
To be fair, anything the GUI clients do can be done with the CLI which is still open source and on all desktop platforms and headscale is literally their open source control server.
Yea, but in iOS?
I mean is anything iOS really open source?
Yes? There are Lemmy clients that are open source, for instance. And the Wireguard client is.
The iOS app is the exception for now but with the CLI and the core libs being open source it’s at least not off the table to make an alternate iOS client I’d say.
Huh, I actually didn’t know this because I don’t use Windows/macOS/iOS. Somehow completely missed this.
Granted this is not Headscale’s fault, they’re just using Tailscale clients. Either way I’m glad I use a roll-your-own Wireguard.
I and my partner also don’t use those OSs, but it’s more the point of using FOSS when we can.
Tailscale never sat right with me. The convenience was nice, but - like other VC-funded projects - it followed that ever-familiar pattern of an “easy” service popping up out of nowhere and gaining massive popularity seemingly overnight. 🚩🚩🚩
I can’t say I’m surprised by any of this.
Maybe this is a pet peeve but it’s a vpn tool that forces you to log in with an “identity provider”. Yeah, no thanks.
That’s a basic requirement for almost any company. If you’re into hard coding credentials just use wireguard directly.
There are tons and tons of websites where you can create an account with just your email. I wouldn’t expect a third party account to be mandatory. Specially from a product like this one.
Would you rather a difficult and hard to use program?
Easy to use means people will want to adopt it, and that’s what VC companies want. Nobody wants to pay millions of dollars to make a program that nobody wants to use.
My problem isn’t directly with the programs - my problem lies with VC funding in general. Because they will come back for their money, and the project will inevitably enshittify and shove out enthusiasts in the never-ending search for infinite money.
The solution is getting rid of VC bullshit entirely. But we all know that will never happen.
I’m just a rat who got pied pipered AGAIN
would you rather …
If it means no VC, yes, without a doubt. That’s kind of the point.
I think there’s room in the world for a selfhosted, foss version of their software, even if a little simplified.
Friendly reminder that Tailscale is VC-funded and driving towards IPO
You know what’s to come.
The answer to the question is immediately. Or switch to OpenZiti or Pangolin even.
@cooopsspace pangolin is not a replacement for tailscale/headscale. different usecase imho. @avidamoeba
Ziti isn’t though.
Point is, you know Tailscale will turn to shit the same way all VC stuff does.
Make no mistakes VC aren’t giving money out of the goodness of their heart, they expect a profit.
I spent an afternoon doing precisely that. Bought a domain, a vps, and setup pangolin. Can’t believe how smooth it went.
Tailscale is great. The principle concern to me is that your super easy mesh network depends on Tailscale so if they want it they have control, and if they change their pricing or options you depend on them, and though they can’t see the data you send they can see the topology of your network and where all your computers/devices are.
I use Nebula, which is more work to set up and doesn’t have some of the features, not But if you slap the ‘lighthouse’ (administrating node) on a cheap VPS it works great. And it has some advantages. But Nebula also troubles me: though it’s fully open source and fully in your control, the documentation isn’t great. Instead, you can now get “managed nebula”, which puts you in the same problem as Tailscale: the company sees and controls your network topology. I fear the company (Defined Networking) is trying to push things that way. Even their android app you can’t fully configure unless you use their ‘managed’ service.
For now, Nebula is great, and my preferred mesh network (I looked into all the main ones). And for Tailscale you can run the administration server yourself with Headscale and be fully in your control.
Actually I wish Tailscale the best as a profitable business. They’ve created a fantastic service and system. But for me, I’d rather my network be in my own hands and for my own eyes. And, as is OP’s main point, once they have enough dependent users, the service might turn much worse.
Netbird seemed to go in a similar way, though still good. I want to try zrok next, looks interesting
Netbird you can still run unlike tailscale with headscale right?
At least hope the backend can be fully ran ?
Yes, and I think it’s the full fat option as well
What do you mean by going in a similar way? Towards an IPO?
Maybe not ipo, but it seemed like it had a strong monetisation push a while ago
Nice to hear your experience with Nebula. I considered it when I went with Tailscale years ago. Now you gotta migrate off of lemm.ee as it’s shutting down soon. :D
Yep. It’s on the TODO list…
I’m not that worried as there are alternatives like Netbird. The underlying tech really isn’t hard to replicate since Wireguard is pretty standard.
I think it would be cool if Tailscale made it into the enterprise arena.
I think it would be cool if Tailscale made it into the enterprise arena.
I think they already have started. Telus is on their list of clients.
What’s the benefit over just WG?
You dont need to manually handle the WG config files. This isn’t really an issue when it’s just you and your two devices, but once you start supporting more people, like non-technical family members, this gets really annoying really quickly.
Tailscale (and headscale) just require you to log in, which even those family members can manage and then does the rest for you. They also support SSO in which case you wouldn’t even have to create new accounts.
No need to port forward, almost 0 config.
Easier/zero configuration compared to manual WG setup. Takes care of ports and providing transparent relay when no direct connection works.
Your tech illiterate grandma can set it up. It’s that easy.
Personally, my ISP (T-Mobile 5G) has CGNAT and blocks all incoming traffic. I can’t simply Wireguard into my network. Tailscale has been my intermediary to get remote access.
I guess it’s time to figure how how to host an alternative on a VPS (I see Headscale mentioned in these comments).
Tailscale uses WG though, so it’s fundamentally the same thing. Like you said - just do Headscale on a VPS.
Or Wireguard on a VPS
WG is worthless in a CGNAT environment… And as we are in 2025 and time doesn’t stop it will be irrelevant for everyone someday, unless they fully support IPv6 (which I don’t know if they do, if you can use WG in a CGNATED network with IPv6 I’d like to know though, I am very rusty setting it up, but it might worth checking it out).
CGNAT is for IPv4, the IPv6 network is separate. But if you have IPv6 connectivity on both ends setting up WG is the same as with IPv4.
I usually have IPv6 access in my home, on the outside it varies from the ISPs :/
Am I totally off-base in thinking that MagicDNS and pluggable DNS nameserver overrides are a huge feature of tailscale?
I love that I can refer to my tailnet devices just via their machine name. I use it everywhere. And also that I can just slot in my NextDNS ID so that any device running tailscale now automatically uses that, and I don’t have to mess with my shared router settings or per device settings. Is all that actually really easy to set up outside of tailscale? Cuz if it is and I just somehow missed that when doing all my research, I’ll happily give plain wireguard or other mesh orchestrators like NetBird a go.
And I already know that mDNS is not the answer. That protocol is simply not reliable enough.
I use wireguard and have public DNS refer to private IPs.
For example if my server is accessible at 10.0.0.1 via wireguard then I point *.myserver.mydomain.com to that IP.
Sorry if I’ve misunderstood your question.
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Nah, DNS is separate and these features are indeed pretty great. I think Headscale can also do them. I think I tested MagicDNS if I recall correctly.
pre-emptive pikachu face strike
So glad my router supports WireGuard/OVPN server hosting, doing it this way also relieves resources off your homelab and for whatever reason your homelab shuts off or loses network access you can at least rely on your router to re-establish the VPN server without further intervention.
Headscale is great if you like networking fun, but that aside I’m not understanding why VC funding is such a black mark to the poster. Tailscale doesn’t generate meaningful revenue streams as its early-stage, so it has to secure funding to continue operations until they achieve high enough revenue to go public. That’s pretty standard in a business life-cycle, though. It seems like the main complaint is that Tailscale is a business. And what about the Linux Foundation? They are funded through private equity. Should you consider switching away because of that?
The problem, though, is that VC-funded projects bite off way more than they can chew from the start and have to enshittify to keep shareholders happy at that level.
Growth for the sake of growth is a fundamentally broken concept. Tailscale provides a free service that many use. They already offer a paid support tier for companies, like other certain FOSS projects do, so why not call it good there? Grow based on actual customer needs, instead of shareholder bullshit “needs” (line must go up 🙄).
That’s pretty standard in a business life-cycle, though
I don’t know where people ever got the idea that normal = acceptable. I hear this used to justify all sorts of awful crap. It was only ever normalized because users were apathetic.
And what about the Linux Foundation? They are funded through private equity. Should you consider switching away because of that?
Does The Linux Foundation have complete control over Linux?
So, companies should not be allowed to invest in other companies? Who is allowed to invest in companies then? Only private individuals? But those individuals are apathetic, so they have to be made to? Or if they don’t want to, then since other companies aren’t allowed, wealthy private individuals would need to? Its not normal because its acceptable, its normal because the alternative is fantastical and unrealistic.
To the other point, does Tailscale have complete control over Wireguard? They don’t control the technology behind that. They do for their control server tech and to some extent Headscale, but that’s not what its built on anymore then what’s built on Linux.
companies should not be allowed to invest in other companies?
That’s not what I’m saying. I’m just saying you need to be wary of companies that do because the inevitable end of that train is enshittification. Every. Single. Time.
does Tailscale have complete control over Wireguard?
Who’s talking about WireGuard? We were talking about Tailscale.
Tailscale builds on top of the Wireguard protocol, LF builds on top of (through grants/scholarships) the Linux OS. You can’t argue that it doesn’t matter that LF doesn’t have control over the underlying technology, but then argue that it does matter in Tailscale’s cause.
It doesn’t matter in either case. Neither of them have control over the underlying technology.
Does The Linux Foundation have complete control over Linux?
You’re the one who said it, though.
Yes I did say that. I don’t understand what you’re trying to communicate. TLF does not control Linux, just as Tailscale does not control WireGuard. Tailscale does control Tailscale. There’s nothing wrong with using Linux and there’s nothing wrong with using WireGuard. There may be something wrong with using Tailscale. I don’t know how to be more clear about this.
Linus is fairly vocal over what is and is not allowed into the Linux Kernel. Pretty sure he has the final say on every commit.
Not that it is a business but is a specific kind of business. VC funded startups eyeing an IPO more often than not start doing things users are not happy with. Maybe tailscale won’t, but might as well be aware what kind of company they are acknowledge there is a decent chance of rugpulls
It seems like the main complaint is that Tailscale is a business. And what about the Linux Foundation?
The Linux Foundation is not a business.
The businesses that fund the Linux Foundation through private equity are though, aren’t they?
Sure. Do you have a point?
Yeah, I think you missed that. Go back through and reread comments please. Thank you.
Could you summarise for us please? It’s not clear.
Yup, I don’t know if that is OP’s intention, but I would agree myself with the complaint that “Tailscale is a business”
The way I see it, if it’s a business it must generate revenue (either now or down the road), and that is enough to have me worried. I do have a Tailscale registration, and the way they approach email communication is already a yellow flag to me (too many ad emails)
That’s not really a justifiable reason, though. The Linux Foundation provides grants and scholarships to the open source community, but they do that through private equity business. So transitively, many open source projects are funded by businesses looking to capitalize on that innovation. Do you consider that when pulling from a git repository? No, that’s overbearing. Additionally Headscale is in part maintained by a Tailscale employee. That would surely create a conflict of interest given Tailscale is solely interested in generating revenue.
That’s not really a justifiable reason, though.
To you it isn’t, but to some of us it is. For me the standard business cycle is not acceptable because I almost inevitably end up under the bus.
The Linux Foundation isn’t a comparable example for me since it’s a non-profit. As a result it isn’t subject to the same market pressures for-profit businesses do, let alone VC-funded ones.
At this point, with everything I know and have experienced about the economy, politics and the world, I am trying to avoid depending on for-profit businesses as much as I can. I know how businesses operate, I know why they operate the way they do, I know what dynamics push them in the directions they go and I’m tired of being run over by the bus. If I ever form a business myself it would either be a non-profit, or a worker co-op, or both, as this will signal everyone who knows what I know what the direction of this business would be about.
Firstly, I’m not trying to start a flame war with commenters, I genuinely just disagree on something and some people are getting a little hot under the collar by it. The Linux Foundation comment I made because ultimately VC touches more than people think. Even its something that isn’t directly tied to VC, that money filters through groups like LF which is a non-profit and most would argue a quite legitimate organization. The point is there really is no separation or clear line of demarcation on what is “good” funding and what is “bad” funding.
The point is there really is no separation or clear line of demarcation on what is “good” funding and what is “bad” funding.
I understand and I disagree. A demarcation emerges from the goal of the funding and its effects. For me, one example of bad funding is funding that drives user acquisition at unsustainable prices by a firm that is also significantly controlled by the funding source. This is predominantly what VC-funding goes to. VC-funding that goes to a non-profit that the VC has no control over, where the VC can’t and does not demand financial return from, is not bad funding in my books. Corporate funding doing the same thing is also not bad funding. Government funding often has the least strings attached as it does not demand direct return, and this also is not bad funding. To top that off citizens can exercise control over government funding via the democratic process, unlike corporate or VC funding, where the vast majority have zero control, and are owed no accountability by the businesses.
Historically, Accel has never pushed acquisition. On the contrary, they do the opposite. Its why they VC fund over 300 companies, but you’ve never heard of them. That’s not to say they couldn’t, but they haven’t ever acted in that manner previously so logically it would be safe to assume that trend continues with Tailscale. I think that’s important here: its not about ability its about intent. If as a organization you give funding to another organization (even non-profits) you exercise at least some control over them as they are dependent on that money to function. This is actually a point other commenters have made in regards to Headscale. Headscale is maintained by a Tailscale employee. As they fund him personally, they can exercise some control over him as he depends on that money/employment. Again, even their comments circle back to ability vs intent. Tailscale could influence their employee, but would they? That’s where a lot of the VC argument goes. Its just speculation as what a group could do, not what they would do.
“The trend” is making money no matter what. That means they’re gonna screw you over eventually, the countdown has already begun, and it’s just a matter of time
I get your point, though Tailscale specifically crosses a line for me in this sense:
- Using code created/maintained by businesses: ok
- Relying in infrastructure maintained by businesses: not ok
I am not that big of an enthusiast, but the way I see it, if a company goes rogue and you’re using their open source code, it’s just a matter of forking it (I’m thinking about Emby/Jellyfin as an example) If you rely on their infrastructure (such as Tailscale servers) then you are at the mercy of the companies
To that end: I’d say that OP is prettt on point by suggesting Headscale, you’re still “using Tailscale” in a sense, but without chaining yourself to the business
I am not that big of an enthusiast, but the way I see it, if a company goes rogue and you’re using their open source code, it’s just a matter of forking it (I’m thinking about Emby/Jellyfin as an example) If you rely on their infrastructure (such as Tailscale servers) then you are at the mercy of the companies
🏅
yellow flag to me (too many ad emails)
Weird. I’m not saying you’re lying, but besides the registration email, and onboarding welcome email, I can’t think of any others I’ve received from Tailscale. In fact, I just did a search of my email client, and those were the only ones I’ve received.
I do believe my experience in this regard is not representative of everyone, I probably failed to untick some checkbox (regarding communications) and the “too many ad emails” are a handful (in 3 months), which to me is a handful too much (having to untick a box should not be necessary)
That’s cool. I don’t like spam either. You are correct in that you should have to opt in instead of opt out.
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AI SLOPPPPPPPPPPPPP delete this nephew
Fine I deleted it. But it worked so whatever don’t need opinions now anyway. I was just asking for advice, it’s not like I was trying to pass it off as my own comment or something.
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a long runway that allows us to become profitable when needed
Switch to self-hosting headscale when they enshittify in an attempt to become profitable, duh
I mainly use Tailscale (and Zerotier) to access my CGNATED LAN, headscale will require me to pay a subscription for a VPS wouldn’t it?
I really envy the guys who say only use them because they’re lazy to open ports or want a more secure approach, I use them because I NEED them lol.
If (when?) Tailscale enshitify I’ll stick with ZT a bit until it goes the same way lol, I started using it 1st, I don’t know if ZT came before Tailscale though.
Same. I mean, I was already looking to rent a VPS, but at least there’s some time so I can save money until things get weird.
Yeah, don’t get me wrong, I can see value of getting a VPS, especially if you are gonna be using it for some other projects, I have had a DO instance in the past and I thinkered with WG back then BTW, but if it is only for remote accessing your home LAN, I don’t feel like paying for it tbh, especially when some users get it for free (public IPv4) and it feels even dumber for me since I have a fully working IPv6 setup!
BTW my ISP is funny, no firewall at all with it, I almost fainted when I noticed everyone could access my self hosted services with the IPv6 address and I did nothing regarding ports or whatsoever… They were fully accessible once I fired up the projects! I think I read an article about this subject… But I can’t recall when or where… I had to manually set up a firewall, which tbh, you always should do and it is especially easy to do in a Synology NAS.
Anyway, back to the mesh VPN part, if they enshitify so be it, but in the meantime we still can benefit from it.
Thats just how IPv6 works. You get a delegate address from your ISP for your router and then any device within that gets it own unique address. Considering how large the pool is, all address are unique. No NAT means no port forwarding needed!
I guess so, my previous ISP also gave me IPv6 address (I could navigate using it) but I could never access my NAS services with it from an IPv6 ready network, I thought it would be the same with the newer ISP, but nope.
Maybe some firewall is active by the ISP? I could not do much thinker back then as I used the stock modem (router) and it was heavily locked.
Vps can be really inexpensive, I pay $3 a month for mine
Same, my Hetzner proxy running NPM, with pivpn and pihole is doing all it needs to do for $3 and some change.
My only open ports on anything I own are 80, 443 and the wg port I changed on that system. Love it.
How does WG work on the local side of the network? Do you need to connect each VM/CT to the wireguard instance?
I am currently setting up my home network again, and my VPS will tunnel through my home network and NPM will be run locally on the local VLAN for services and redirect from there.
I wonder if there is any advantage to run NPM on the VPS instead of locally?
The vps is the wg server and my home server is a client and it uses pihole as the dns server. Once your clients hang around for a minute, their hostnames will populate on pihole and become available just like TS.
You do have to set available ips to wg’s subnet so your clients don’t all exit node from the server, so you’ll be able to use 192.168.0.0 at home still for speed.
As for NPM, run it on the proxy, aim (for example) Jellyfin at 10.243.21.4 on the wg network and bam.
I am a newbie so I am not sure I understand correctly. Tell me if my understanding is good.
Your Pi-Hole act as your DNS, so the VPS use the pi-hole through the tunnel to check for the translation IP, as set through the DNS directive in the wg file. For example, my pi-hole is at 10.0.20.5, so the DNS will be that address.
On the local side, the pi-hole is the DNS for all the services on that subnet and each service automatically populate their host name on pi-hole. I can configure the DNS server in my router/firewall (OPNSense in my case)
So when I ping service.example.com, it goes through the VPS, which queries the pi-hole through the tunnel and translates the address to the local subnet IP if applicable.
So when I have the wg connection active and my pi-hole is the DNS, every web request will go through the pi-hole. If the IP address is inside the range of AllowedIPs, the connection will go through the tunnel to the service, otherwise, the connection will go through outside the wg tunnel.
Does that make sense?
the VPS uses the pi-hole through the tunnel
The VPS is Pihole, the dns for the server side is 127.0.0.1. 127.0.0.1 is also 10.x.x.1 for the clients, so they connect to that as the dns address.
server dns - itself
client dns - the server’s wg address
On the local side, the pi-hole is the DNS for all the services on that subnet and each service automatically populate their host name on pi-hole. I can configure the DNS server in my router/firewall (OPNSense in my case)
Only if your router/firewall can directly connect to wg tunnels, but I went for every machine individually. My router isn’t aware I host anything at all.
So when I ping service.example.com, it goes through the VPS, which queries the pi-hole through the tunnel and translates the address to the local subnet IP if applicable.
Pihole (in my case) can’t see 192.x.x.x hosts. Use 10.x.x.x across every system for continuity.
So when I have the wg connection active and my pi-hole is the DNS, every web request will go through the pi-hole. If the IP address is inside the range of AllowedIPs, the connection will go through the tunnel to the service, otherwise, the connection will go through outside the wg tunnel.
Allowed ips = 10.x.x.0/24 - only connects the clients and server together
Allowed ips = 0.0.0.0/0 - sends everything through the VPN, and connects the clients and server together.
Do the top one, that’s how TS works.
~$1.91 a month (paid 22.99 for a year) at racknerd!
Or get something like a rapsberry-pi (second hand or on a sale). I have netbird running on it and I can use it to access my home network and also use it as tunnel my traffic through it.
I don’t think that would solve the cgnat issue. I use a vps because I don’t want to pay 250 a month for a starlink routable ip
Been meaning to do this. Tailscale was just there and easy to implement when I set my stuff up. Is it relatively simple to transition?
Bookmarking “headscale”!
I only recently started using Tailscale because it makes connecting to my local network through a Windows VM running in Boxes on Linux a hell of a lot easier than figuring out how to set up a networked bridge.
This sounds like a great alternative, and it looks like it can even work on a Synology NAS.
I can’t unfortunately. They only feature I use is that fact I can access my ipv6 only server via an ipv4 only network.
I’m unsure if it has been mentioned, but a similar tool which is open source (you can run the backend unlike tailscale), netbird
Headscale is the tailscale backend server
Well not “the” backend server but “a” different backend server. As far as I know Headscale is a separate implementation from what Tailscale run themselves.
We’ve implemented netbird at my company, we’re pretty happy with it overall.
The main drawback is that it has no way of handling multiple different accounts on the same machine, and they don’t seem to have any plans for ever really solving that. As long as you can live with that, it’s a good solution.
Support is a mixed bag. Mostly just a slack server, kind of lacking in what I’d call enterprise level support. But development seems to be moving at a rapid pace, and they’re definitely in that “Small but eager” stage where everything happens quickly. I’ve reported bugs and had them fixed the same day.
Everything is open source. Backend, clients, the whole bag. So if they ever try to enshittify, you can just take your ball and leave.
Also, the security tools are really cool. Instead of writing out firewall rules by hand like Tailscale, they have a really nice, really simple GUI for setting up all your ACLs. I found it very intuitive.
Thank you for your insight, I’m assuming the only public part is the UI and coturn (the bit that enables two clients between firewalls to hole-punch)?
Yes, the underlying model is the same as Tailscale, Zerotier and Netmaker (also worth checking out, btw). Clients connect to a central host (which can be self-hosted) and use that to exchange information on addresses and open ports, then form direct connections to each other.
Is there an issue with Netbird’s servers at the moment? In my testing devices are connected and reach eachother, but the web admin is missing a lot of functionality compared to what’s in the docs. The peer devices section is there, but everything else, user settings, rules etc, isn’t showing/says I don’t have admin permission (of my own account… Lol?)
Honestly, no idea, worth checking their GitHub etc or their status pages if they have any
Are there better alternatives? I was planning on using tailscale until now. :P
Wireguard if you’re just using it yourself. Many various ways to manage it, and it’s built in to most routers already.
Otherwise Headscale with one of the webUIs would be the closest replacement.
Pivpn is really easy, and since pivpn is just scripts, it always installs current wireguard even if they lax on updating pivpn that often.
I decided to experiment a bit with Headscale when the wg-easy v15 update broke my chained VPN setup. Got it all set up with Headplane for a UI, worked amazingly, until I learned I was supposed to set it all up on a VPS instead and couldn’t actually access it if I wasn’t initially on my home network, oops.
I might play around with it again down the road with a cheap VPS, didn’t take long to get it going, but realistically my setup’s access is 95% me and 5% my wife so Wireguard works fine (reverted back to wg-easy v14 until v15 allows disabling ipv6 though, since that seemed to be what was causing the issues I’ve been seeing).
Why does it need to be on a VPS? It seems to work on a home network when I played around with it.
Well a VPS or an exposed service, but I feel like the latter ends up somewhat defeating the purpose anyway.
When running locally (not exposed), it worked great until I tried to make the initial connection from mobile data - can’t establish a connection to headscale if it can’t reach it in the first place. Unless I’m mistaken, the headscale service needs to be publicly accessible in some way.
Oh gotcha yes it does. Are you on CGNAT with your ISP so you can’t forward ports?
Nah, but personally I have no need to expose anything and would rather avoid the security headaches and such that come with it
A bunch really, Headscale with Tailscale client, Nebula VPN, Netmaker, Zerotier.
Yeah, I also use that, but it’s not quite as easy as the others. Either you’re open to the whole network or you need some form of external key management to add/remove peers from your network.
Depends on your use case. If you’re just looking to expose services and are ok having them publicly accessible, there’s Cloudflare Tunnel, or you can run WireGuard on a cheap VPS
For me personally, the next step is using Headscale - a FOSS replacement of the Tailscale control server. The Tailscale clients are already open source and can be used with Headscale.
Someone else could give other suggestions.
I’ve been meaning to switch from Tailscale to Headscale but I have been to busy. Do you have any instructions, write-ups/walk-thrus you could recommend to set this up? I have three sites with 1GB internet I can use. One has a whole house UPS but dynamic IP, another has a static IP but no UPS, and the third is Google fiber with no UPS, but I can use the app to get the current IP anytime. I also own a number of domain names I could use.
No writeups. I tried following the Headscale doc for a test last year. Set it up on the smallest DigitalOcean VM. Worked fine. Didn’t use a UI, had to add new clients via CLI on the server. When I set it up for real, I’d likely setup a UI as well and put it in a cloud outside of the US. It would work at home too but any other connection would die if my home internet dies or the power does. E.g. accessing one laptop from another, or accessing the off-site backup location.
I use the built in wireguard VPN in my router. If you just need local network access elsewhere it’s usually really easy to setup if your router provides it. I would look into it!
ive been eyeing up netbird but havnt got around to trying it yet. its fully open source at least, and theyre based in germany is anyone cares about that
Just looked at NetBird, it looks suspiciously similar to Tailscale in what it does except they also got an open-source control server. They have self-hosting doc right in their web site. Looks interesting. Can’t find much about the company other than it’s based in Berlin and it’s currently private - Wiretrustee UG.
What’s the difference with their open-source control server, from headscale? That it’s officially published by the company?
i used netbird heavily at my last job and i use it for a few things at home. it works pretty well.
I use Nebula. It’s lightweight, well-engineered and fully under your control. But you do need a computer with a fixed IP and accessible port. (E.g. a cheap VPS)
You can also use “managed nebula” if you want to enjoy the same risk of the control point of your network depending on a new business ;-)