WireHop vs Tailscale

Tailscale is a good product with a bigger ecosystem, a real admin console, and years more polish. This page is about the one thing it can't do, and who should pick which.

Side by side Pick the right one

One architectural difference

Everything else on this page follows from it.

Tailscale runs a coordination server: a hosted service that knows your devices, holds your account, and hands out the keys that let machines find each other. Your traffic doesn't flow through it, but your membership does, and getting a device on means authenticating to it. WireHop has no such service: a machine proves who it is with a key it generated, and the roster of who belongs is replicated between your own machines. Joining means redeeming a token minted by a machine you already control.

For a person that is mostly philosophical. For an agent it is the difference between finishing and stopping: an account is a step only a human can complete.

Side by side

Green marks a real advantage, amber a real disadvantage. Both columns have both.

WireHop
Tailscale
Account required
None. Identity is a keypair on disk
Yes, via an identity provider
Coordination server
None. Membership replicates between your machines
Hosted, or self-host the open-source Headscale
Agent can set it up alone
Yes, and we publish a test that measures it
No: account creation and key issuance need a person
Access control
Assign a role, reach follows from it
Write a policy file in the console. More expressive, more to author
NAT traversal
Direct where possible, relay as fallback
More mature. Years of DERP infrastructure and edge cases
Platforms
macOS and Linux. Windows via WSL only
Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, Android, plus appliances
Admin console
None. Command line and JSON
Full web console, device approval, key expiry management
SSO and user management
None. Built for your own machines, not an org of people
SSO, SCIM provisioning, user groups
Remote shell and file copy
Built in. Shell, exec, rsync-style sync, port forward
Tailscale SSH and Taildrop; otherwise bring your own
One command fleet-wide
Built in, selected by role or tag
Not a feature; use your own tooling over the network
Scheduled work on a machine
Built in, survives your disconnect
Not a feature
Audit log
Per machine, local, no central collector
Centralized in the console, with streaming to a SIEM
Source and licence
Fully open source, MIT or Apache-2.0. Ship it inside a closed-source product if you like
Client is open source (BSD-3); the hosted coordination server is not
Third-party security audit
None yet. Source is public
Yes, published
Maturity
Young. Smaller ecosystem, fewer integrations
Widely deployed, large community, many integrations

Pick the right one

We would rather you use the tool that fits than churn a setup that already works.

Use Tailscale if

  • You're connecting people in an organization and want SSO, groups and provisioning
  • You need Windows, iOS or Android clients
  • Someone needs a web console to see and approve devices
  • You want centralized audit streamed into a SIEM, or a published third-party audit
  • Your NAT situation is unusual and you want the most battle-tested traversal

Use WireHop if

  • You want an AI agent to build and operate the network without you
  • You want no account and no coordination server: nothing holding your device list that could be breached or shut down
  • You're connecting your own machines, not an org of users
  • You want shell, file sync, fleet commands and scheduling in the same tool as the network
  • You'd rather assign a role than author a policy file

They also coexist. WireHop notices when the 100.64.0.0/10 range is already claimed by another interface and skips bringing up its own network rather than fighting over it. Reaching machines, running commands and copying files keep working either way.

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