tailscale VS ZeroTier

Tailscale: mesh VPN, zero config. Just install and forget. Perfect for personal/private access.

Optional: Use Tailscale to access your lab from any device securely

For accessing my server from outside and anywhere, I use Tailscale. This service creates a VPN between all your desired devices. It offers much better security and less risk than using port forwarding or exposing ports/services to the whole internet. Runs fantastic — and even for free!

How does this compare to Tailscale?

Rust vs Go is one difference. What else?

Tailscale: https://github.com/tailscale/tailscale

> For an example of how invasive this is for the average user, this person discovered Tailscale trying to collect ~18000 data points per week about their network usage based on the number of blocked DNS requests for `log.tailscale.com`: https://github.com/tailscale/tailscale/issues/15326

18000 data points per week seems IMHO pretty low (only 1.7 requests per minute for a whole network? Unlikely, even my Android phone does way more that 1.7 requests per minute just to ad networks, nevermind everything else on the network summed), it's probably way more.

18000 data points is also a lie, that's a different issue - the issue of UDP DNS sucking in general so your average application/OS keeps reissuing requests if they think the UDP packet got dropped.

But I only saw the usability of Go as an alternative to Python for scripting/CLI application development, and obviously for backend development. Especially when it comes to gRPC (but that's a story for another time). I never looked at Go as an option for the development of FFI Flutter plugins, until sometime last year, I got acquainted with Tailscale. Tailscale has built its products around Go, including mobile applications. For reference, I'd strongly encourage you to check the source code of their Android client and the Swift library inside the main libtailscale repository. So, somebody did it... A successful company uses Golang for its clients.

Tailscale has made all of their client source code available for anyone to view so if you want to confirm that you’re not sending unencrypted data or keys through their servers you’re more than free to do so.

https://github.com/tailscale/tailscale

I think there is some merit to setting up wireguard (e.g. you want more devices than what Tailscale offers for free, or their servers become unreliable for some reason)

But people who push the “scarey boogeyman will look at your data” with Tailscale are either technically illiterate or overly-paranoid.

For example, the home networking, personal VPN, we may use Tailscale. https://tailscale.com/ which is also listed on the Umbrel App Store.

Here then comes VPN (Virtual Private Network) which is basically establishes a protected network connection when using public networks. I already have relevant experiences with this one as some of my previous projects involves private repositories that can only be accessed by connecting into the client's VPN. There are many solutions for this specific use case like WireGuard, but in this particular blog, I chose Tailscale.

I had 2 old laptops sitting around, both 10 years old. I turned both into a home server. Installed Ubuntu Server, set up Docker, and now I run all my containers remotely. With Tailscale, I can securely connect to it like it's on the same network. This way, my MacBook doesn't have to run MongoDB, Redis, or RabbitMQ anymore. That alone freed up a lot of memory. I can even run other services like HomeAssistant, MailHog, Immich, etc.

Tailscale uses Go https://tailscale.com/security#tailscale-is-written-in-go which might explain the larger sizes.

A cursory look through https://github.com/zerotier/ZeroTierOne shows more C++ and some Rust. Not sure how much static linking is involved here.

ZeroTier - Layer 2 overlay network. They take decentralization seriously, and like to say "decentralize until it hurts, then centralize until it works." Written in C++.

EDIT - I'm tired and cross-eyed after a bunch of internet searching and rabbit holes... A supposed ZeroTier dev said on April 25, 2023 that this would be addressed in a future release of the app in this thread: https://github.com/zerotier/ZeroTierOne/issues/1952. On August 10th, another engineer said that they are waiting for a car to be delivered.

Solution 2: Wait for support from Zerotier-One with DBUS

A Smart Ethernet Switch for Earth

https://github.com/zerotier/ZeroTierOne (11.5k stars)

If you just want to connect between your devices, you don't need any hardware. Just install zerotier on them.