Tailscale - Programmable networking software for secure remote access

I have been using Tailscale  for approximately one to one and a half years for one of my projects. My main use case for Tailscale  during that project was connecting different GCP GKE  clusters. I had different production, staging, and testing clusters, and we wanted a way to easily connect to any of the clusters. Tailscale allowed us to easily access any of the clusters we wanted from a local system.

I chose Tailscale for this setup because I was searching for different projects to connect different clusters, and I found Tailscale online. There were quite good reviews about Tailscale, which was one of the reasons I chose it to connect different clusters. Tailscale is quite easy to deploy and get started with.

The setup process and documentation for Tailscale stood out to me because the documentation is quite good and the setup is quite easy. You just need to install a single binary on your system and you are ready to go. You can easily connect to any of the systems that you want.

The best features Tailscale offers for me are how easily we can connect to different clusters and different systems. If I have a system somewhere around the globe and I want to connect directly from my local system, it is quite easy. I just need to have Tailscale binary on my system, and I can connect to that specific system.

I did not face any issues with latency or connection reliability while using Tailscale; it was quite seamless for me. Connecting was quite easy.

I discovered some ACL  features while exploring Tailscale later on, and I think they are quite good. We can configure some IPs through which we can connect, and I think that is one of the good features Tailscale has.

I think Tailscale is quite good for me as I am not a power user. I have mostly used it for basic use cases, and I feel that nothing is missing for me. If there were any power users who have used Tailscale extensively, they might give some feedback on what can be improved upon, but for me, it was good and suitable. I cannot think of anything that needs to be improved upon.

I have been working in my current field for more than four years.

Tailscale is stable.

Regarding Tailscale's scalability, we did not use it at a large scale since our team is small, but I think it is good.

Tailscale customer support is good.

I did not previously use a different solution because we directly went with Tailscale. We did not have any other solution before that.

My main use case for Tailscale during that project was mostly about connecting different GCP GKE  clusters. I had different production, staging, and testing clusters, and we wanted a way through which we could easily connect to any of the clusters. Tailscale allowed us to easily access any of the clusters we wanted from a local system.

The time saved by using Tailscale is significant because earlier, when we wanted to connect different clusters, we used to run GCP commands to connect them. With Tailscale, it was quite easy. We were still running the command, but we did not need the specific command anymore because it was just Tailscale binary, and it was quite easy to connect to any of the clusters we wanted. We have seen a return on investment from Tailscale since it was a time-saving tool for us. We did not need different GCP commands to connect to different clusters; it was just a single Tailscale binary through which we were connecting, making it a time-saving solution.

My experience with pricing, setup costs, and licensing for Tailscale is that since our team is quite small, about ten people, we did not take any license and the cost was zero for us because we were using Tailscale's open-source version.

Before choosing Tailscale, I thought about evaluating other options, but there was another tool called WireGuard, which Tailscale is based upon. I did not look for any other tool further because I felt that Tailscale was good and would do my job.

I advise others looking into using Tailscale to go for the documentation and just read over the things, as it is quite easy to set up. I think anyone can set up Tailscale. Tailscale is a good tool to use, and it is quite friendly without hassle to set it up. My rating for this review is nine out of ten.

My main use case for Tailscale  is access to internal resources and supporting clients, having replaced two different VPN products I was using previously.

I have a number of applications that are running within my network. I have used the split DNS for accessing internal resources or supporting clients.

Using split DNS with Tailscale  has helped me manage access and support my clients by being able to use my internal DNS servers easily within the network without needing to have full tunnel connections. It has worked great for exposing particular applications to clients who are shared to particular nodes on my tailnet.

The best feature Tailscale offers is the ease of use for managing WireGuard and the fact that the key management is completely transparent, both for the WireGuard tunnel connection and for the SSH functionality.

The transparent key management and SSH functionality have benefited me by completely eliminating a manual, tedious step of needing to manage keys, which felt like a significant security risk that something could go wrong in the key management process. With Tailscale, it just happens and works.

Tailscale has positively impacted my organization and consulting work by making remote connections easy, significantly reducing the friction and making this very reliable, even behind difficult networks with CGNAT or other situations that make establishing connections difficult using other means.

I think if there was a streamlined mechanism to self-host the control plane, that would be a significant help in certain regulatory environments where customers feel unsure about having an external party control authentication onto the tailnet. Even with Tailnet Lock, there is still a concern that there are parts of the control plane that are opaque.

I have been using Tailscale since September of last year.

Tailscale is stable.

I have not hit the limits of Tailscale's scalability, which works well under automation and infrastructure as code. It is scalable from the perspective I am able to see.

I have not had much of a need to interact with customer support, but the only thing that I have used it for is to establish a custom OIDC identity provider, and the response felt quick and professional.

I previously used self-hosted WireGuard and OpenVPN  connections because they had difficulty getting through in particular CGNAT connections, and that was the initial impetus for looking at Tailscale.

My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing was straightforward and seemed fair for the value that the product provides.

My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.

I do not have any metrics to share. Qualitatively, it definitely feels as though time troubleshooting connectivity has decreased.

Support issues related to connectivity have dropped by about half, and while I do not have an exact measure, the amount of time spent working on connectivity issues has decreased significantly.

I did not purchase Tailscale through the AWS Marketplace .

I also evaluated Twingate  and ZeroTier  before choosing Tailscale.

My advice to others looking into using Tailscale is to give it a try and make sure that it suits your needs, but overall, it feels like a stable product that greatly simplifies VPN and remote connectivity needs. I would rate this product a nine out of ten.

I use Tailscale  to securely access remote Linux servers for tasks like SSH and system management without exposing services to the public internet. I also access a Linux server with the help of the RDP protocol.

I mainly use Tailscale  to securely connect device to device, and it provides authentication and access control between multiple machines, which I found very helpful.

When I mention authentication and access control, it allowed me to access servers from anywhere without worrying about network restrictions and reduced the time spent on setup and troubleshooting.

The biggest benefit of Tailscale is simplicity; it is quick to set up and provides a stable and secure connection. I can set it up with only one command without any manual configuration, which is where I think it is very helpful.

Tailscale has improved remote access efficiency and reduced the complexity of managing secure connections across systems, which is the main point from my perspective.

The only drawback I found is that the subnet routing option in Tailscale is too advanced and sometimes requires advanced networking concepts. A person needs to fully understand it to configure it properly.

I have been using Tailscale for several months from a different account to access remote servers and to test connectivity between systems.

I chose Tailscale because it simplifies VPN setup, and I did not have to deal with port forwarding or complex firewall configurations, which saved a lot of time for me.

When I needed to access a remote Linux server from a different network, instead of configuring port forwarding or a traditional VPN, I used Tailscale to connect securely and directly. It allowed me to perform tasks like SSH access and system checks without exposing the server publicly. I would rate this product a 10 out of 10.

I have been using Tailscale  for three to four years now for personal use and for my volunteer and business work.

My main use case for Tailscale  is maintaining my personal network that I use for family and friends. It is easy to set up on pretty much any device.

I use it for getting around port forwarding restrictions. For example, if I have a network on my school computer that I cannot port forward from, I can plug a VPN into it and port forward onto the VPN.

Tailscale has been beneficial for hosting game servers with friends online. It is useful for situations where you need to get around firewalls and restrictions. You need a VPN to secure your networking because many of these game servers do not have encryption by default when they are small games. It is helpful to be able to set that up.

The best features Tailscale offers include ease of startup. Once you log in on your Google account, you can add other people's Google accounts or use emails if they do not have one. There are all sorts of options available. I used it a while ago to set up, so I am not sure how the current setup options are, but it is very useful in that aspect.

Tailscale has been very helpful for setting up a VPN network in various locations when you might not have the time to set up port forwarding or configure servers on each end. When you just want something quick and ready to go, it is the solution for you. It is really good for that.

This quick setup with Tailscale has saved me probably days of work that I would have spent learning how to configure traditional VPN solutions, more traditional solutions like WireGuard, where I would have had to learn their entire configuration process and it would have taken days just to set that up. After that, I would have had to replicate it on every machine I use.

I think Tailscale can be improved by enhancing the free side of things. It is really useful for people who are students or personal users who are not business users to keep going with the free version because it expands your user base. If you can get people to realize that this is actually a good product, they will be willing to pay for the paid version.

The process of adding other users with their Google accounts or emails was challenging at first when I was figuring out how to add other emails. I thought I would have to sign in on my Google account each time, but once I discovered that you could invite people, that was when it really took off.

My advice for others looking into using Tailscale is to make sure it has the features you need for the payment plan you are willing to go for. There are multiple payment plans, and if you want more users or more devices, you have to pay more, but make sure it has what you need for the payment you are willing to offer.

I mainly use Tailscale  for remote access to my services. I have my whole server setup at home, which is a Proxmox cluster where I have a couple of services running on the backend, and I want to access those services remotely such as websites, some Docker  containers, and some stacks. I install Tailscale  on those applications so that I can access them remotely from my PC, whether at home or somewhere else. I turn on Tailscale and use it.

I have a mixed environment in my backend, which includes a couple of Windows VMs, all my servers being Linux-based, my Mac environment, my iPhone, and my MacBook that I bring outside, so I install Tailscale on those devices. I also have my router in pfSense where I install Tailscale as well.

I use Tailscale mostly on-premises to access all of my services. I could deploy it on cloud services such as AWS  or Azure , but I already have my own environment, so everything is just within the premise.

I find troubleshooting to be very easy with Tailscale, as I turn it on everywhere I go, and I can access my services remotely and securely without worrying about a certificate or anything. Another advantage of Tailscale is that sometimes I need to be physically at home to troubleshoot or to do something for myself or for my business. Tailscale has this service called Exit Node, so when I am outside, I turn on Tailscale and enable the Exit Node. I install this in two devices in my home lab, allowing me to route my network through those devices even if I am physically outside, which means other companies see me staying at home doing my work.

MagicDNS is really good because I do not have to remember the IP address of all of my devices or services, and I also use split DNS as well, where some of the networking requests actually go through my pfSense router and bounce to some of the local devices that I have here.

One thing I want Tailscale to improve is their user interface for Arch Linux, which is one of the devices I have that I installed Tailscale on, but they do not have the native package with full features, a capability I really want them to develop. Another enhancement would be to allow a graphical interface for more power users. Sometimes I want to run things on the website or user interface, so I wish to control advanced access control lists with a good user interface, and that would really be helpful.

I have been using Tailscale for two years, and it has been going great.

Tailscale has been very stable in my experience, with no issues so far. I would suggest for other users that when you want to upgrade the service or the app for security reasons, sometimes Tailscale app, especially on iOS, might break, so it is better to see any updates and maybe wait for a couple of days for feedback before upgrading the apps.

Tailscale's scalability seems very good, as I install it and currently have around twenty or thirty apps running on my web admin in Tailscale. I believe Tailscale uses AWS  services as a base, so I think they have no issues scaling up the services.

So far, I do not have any issues with Tailscale. If I do, I go to Reddit, which I think is one of the official channels for them, and there are a lot of Tailscale staff that respond in that channel, allowing me to ask questions there.

I had been using another service before, which is WireGuard, but the thing for WireGuard is that I had to open ports on my router to be able to use it remotely. Tailscale uses WireGuard technology, and the speed is the same, but the setup for Tailscale is very easy, which is a very good point.

Before Tailscale, I used WireGuard, but I had to open a hole in my firewall for port forwarding. After finding out that Tailscale is a very easy mesh P2P network, I completely switched to Tailscale because it is very easy.

I think Tailscale is very easy to use, and that is the best thing that I would add here.

I find the process of installing Tailscale on all those different devices fairly easy, where I just run a command, a CLI command, to install it. There are two ways: I either find the command by adding the device from Tailscale user interface, or I just run the command directly on the device, and they will give me a link to click to activate the device. However, one thing that I want to add for Tailscale is that sometimes I need a very simple user interface to control my services. Most of my devices can install it and have a native setup with a user interface, but I have Arch Linux on one PC, and I could not find the applications from Tailscale that natively support that app.

I notice a lot of time saved with Tailscale because it is very easy to set up, and I think it saves around forty percent of the time to turn on and manage my remote environment. Everything is pretty smooth.

Before choosing Tailscale, I evaluated other options such as Cloudflare , Cloudflare  Zero Trust, and some services such as Headscale as well. However, when I bumped into Tailscale and tried it, it hooked me right away, primarily for its remote access, easy setup, and multi-environment support.

Tailscale has been helping my organization a lot, primarily for security, as I do not have to open up any port in my router, which is really helpful. There are other options to access my services and applications remotely, such as Cloudflare Tunnel, but that again exposes risk to the public. Even with their zero trust network, it still feels somewhat risky. However, for Tailscale, everything is encrypted in the mesh network, the speed is really good, and I really appreciate that. Tailscale also offers it for free for three users and up to one hundred applications or nodes, and I am still using that, which is really good. I think for others, if they want to try Tailscale, they can register for free first and try it out; there is no harm in that.

I am still using the free tier of Tailscale, but I have a lot of services under it. Pricing seems good because they offer, as I mentioned, up to three users and one hundred apps or services for free, so I am still trying it out, and the service and the speed are pretty good.

I recommend that Tailscale users take advantage of the offering of a free tier and try it first. I give this product a review rating of eight out of ten.