Friendly reminder that Tailscale is VC-funded and driving towards IPO
-
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.
What is even the point of tailscale? What can it do that other VPN solutions don't? I feel like this is a problem that was solved like 20 years ago and still we're coming up with novel solutions for some reason. At my company they want to start using tailscale and I don't see why we don't just set up wireguard on a node in our k8s cluster instead
-
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.
Was listening to some computer podcast a while ago and the co-host and ex- hacker was saying that more and more VPNs are getting targeted and it’s just a matter of time we see quite a bit of them owned. (I think he was talking about implementation of VPNs for remote workers, rather than actual VPN providers. Sorry, it was some time ago)
Anyway, the host asked „What about wireguard?“
And the co-host: „Oh yeah, wireguard is solid! But all the services building up on wireguard? … They’ll get popped.“
Doesn’t have to be true, but something to keep in mind.
-
What is even the point of tailscale? What can it do that other VPN solutions don't? I feel like this is a problem that was solved like 20 years ago and still we're coming up with novel solutions for some reason. At my company they want to start using tailscale and I don't see why we don't just set up wireguard on a node in our k8s cluster instead
Because it offers much more than just VPN even though that's what most users use it for. Read their documentation and you'll see
-
What is even the point of tailscale? What can it do that other VPN solutions don't? I feel like this is a problem that was solved like 20 years ago and still we're coming up with novel solutions for some reason. At my company they want to start using tailscale and I don't see why we don't just set up wireguard on a node in our k8s cluster instead
If you are capable of setting up your own personal VPN, you don't need Tailscale. You still may want to use it though, depending on how much of a novelty Network Fun is for you in your spare time.
For me, the main advantage to Tailscale et al is that it is on a per device basis. So I can access my SMB shares or Frigate setup remotely while still keeping the rest of my internal network isolated( to the degree I trust the software and network setup). You CAN accomplish that with some fancy firewall rules and vlanning but... yeah.
-
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.
-
They also had a major ass security issue that a security company should not be able to get away with the other day: assuming everyone with access to an email domain trusts each other unless it's a known-to-them freemail address. And it was by design "to reduce friction".
I don't think a security company where an intentional decision like that can pass through design, development and review can make security products that are fit for purpose. This extends to their published client tooling as used by Headscale, and to some extent the Headscale maintainer hours contributed by Tailscale (which are significant and probably also the first thing to go if the company falls down the usual IPO enshittification).
Headscale maintainer hours contributed by Tailscale
Could you expand on this?
-
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.
I've realized how easy it is to just actually run a network rather than half ass it with tailscale. I recommend this, it's fun.
-
Isn’t that the entire design philosophy of tailscale?: reduce friction, at the cost of some security.
If security is your main priority, you should be using more secure options, even if they are less convenient or tougher to maintain.
-
Headscale maintainer hours contributed by Tailscale
Could you expand on this?
There's a disclaimer in the readme: https://github.com/juanfont/headscale/?tab=readme-ov-file#disclaimer
The maintainer Tailscale contributes happens to be the lead developer by commit count at the moment.
-
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.
Didnt even work for me, i use mullvad so if i wanted to use tailscale on my android to connect to my desktop, it wants me to disable mullvad unlike on my desktop..
-
What's the benefit over just WG?
Your tech illiterate grandma can set it up. It’s that easy.
-
Didnt even work for me, i use mullvad so if i wanted to use tailscale on my android to connect to my desktop, it wants me to disable mullvad unlike on my desktop..
Yeah this was a deal-breaker for me too.
-
What is even the point of tailscale? What can it do that other VPN solutions don't? I feel like this is a problem that was solved like 20 years ago and still we're coming up with novel solutions for some reason. At my company they want to start using tailscale and I don't see why we don't just set up wireguard on a node in our k8s cluster instead
Because I can have 3 phones, 2 tablets, 3 computers and 4 server on the same Tailnet in 15 minutes when starting from scratch
-
Are there better alternatives? I was planning on using tailscale until now.
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
-
Because I can have 3 phones, 2 tablets, 3 computers and 4 server on the same Tailnet in 15 minutes when starting from scratch
I guess that's neat but I don't think I've ever needed more than one connection to a corpo VPN at a time
-
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.
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?
-
What's the benefit over just WG?
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).
-
I guess that's neat but I don't think I've ever needed more than one connection to a corpo VPN at a time
Tailscale/headscale/wire guard is different from a normal vpn setup.
VPN: you tunnel into a remote network and all your connections flow through as if you’re on that remote network.
Tailscale: your devices each run the daemon and basically create a separate, encrypted, dedicated overlay network between them no matter where they are or what network they are on. You can make an exit node where network traffic can exit the overlay network to the local network for a specific cidr, but without that, you’re only devices on the network are the devices connected to the overlay. I can setup a set of severs to be on the Tailscale overlay and only on that network, and it will only serve data with the devices also on the overlay network, and they can be distributed anywhere without any crazy router configuration or port forwarding or NAT or whatever.
-
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.
Meh. I will keep using it
-
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?
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)
