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?

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.

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.

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!

A bunch really, Headscale with Tailscale client, Nebula VPN, Netmaker, Zerotier.

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

There are some community webUIs for Headscale, headplane in particular looks pretty good: https://headscale.net/stable/ref/integration/web-ui/

I'm not sure otherwise how different the experience would be.

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.

Easier/zero configuration compared to manual WG setup. Takes care of ports and providing transparent relay when no direct connection works.

No need to port forward, almost 0 config.

https://tailscale.com/blog/how-tailscale-works

Your tech illiterate grandma can set it up. It’s that easy.

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.

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.

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.

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

Because I can have 3 phones, 2 tablets, 3 computers and 4 server on the same Tailnet in 15 minutes when starting from scratch

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?)

everything is open source except half of all things.

Lol

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)

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?

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.