# Tailscale

Canonical: https://inetgeek.com/ztna/tailscale/

A WireGuard mesh network priced per user, with a free personal tier that carries nearly the whole product for one person.

## Who it suits

A small team with a lot of machines. The meter is people, not devices, so one engineer connecting twenty servers pays for one seat — and the free Personal tier is, in Tailscale's own words, nearly all of the product rather than a stripped one.

Consider something else if You need commercial use by more than one person without paying, or fine-grained group policy. Standard is $8 a user — the dearest here — and caps ACL groups at ten.

## iScore

84 / 100 (80% interval 74–94), rank 2 of 3 in ztna — interval overlaps the next rank, so this is an ordering, not a finding.

inetGeek's own reading, computed from sourced facts against category peers by disclosed rules. Not a provider claim. Intervals are 80%; a provider with few documented facts is pulled toward the category middle rather than scored on what little is known.
Method: https://inetgeek.com/iscore/. Full output with every criterion's basis: https://inetgeek.com/scores.json. Every ztna peer ranked: https://inetgeek.com/ztna/tailscale/alternatives/

- Price: 78 (71–84), weight 36%, 3 of 3 criteria scored
- Capabilities: 75 (30–100), weight 29%, 0 of 2 criteria scored; scored for peers, not here — undocumented or stated without a number or a yes/limited/no: mfa, self_hostable
- Trust and compliance: 100 (94–100), weight 21%, 1 of 1 criteria scored
- Evidence: 95 (95–95), weight 14%, 4 of 4 criteria scored

## What the documentation says

### Pricing

- Free tier: Yes ([source](https://tailscale.com/pricing), read 2026-09-16)
- Kind of free offer: Free tier ([source](https://tailscale.com/pricing), read 2026-09-16)
- What the free plan includes: Nearly all of the product, for individuals — Tailscale's own wording — rather than a feature-stripped tier. The limit is that it is one person, not which features they get. ([source](https://tailscale.com/pricing), read 2026-09-16)
- Entry paid plan: $8 per user per month for Standard, which lifts the user cap entirely and adds SCIM provisioning. ([source](https://tailscale.com/pricing), read 2026-09-16)
- Pricing model: Per user per month, $8 on Standard, with machines not counted separately — the meter is people, and a user connecting twenty devices pays the same as one connecting two. ([source](https://tailscale.com/pricing), read 2026-09-16)

### Inference

- Rate limits: Up to 10 ACL groups on Standard, and 1,000 minutes a month for ephemeral resources. ([source](https://tailscale.com/pricing), read 2026-09-16)

### Auth

- SCIM provisioning: Supported ([source](https://tailscale.com/pricing), read 2026-09-16)

## Compared with

- [Tailscale vs Twingate](https://inetgeek.com/compare/tailscale-vs-twingate/)
- [Tailscale vs NetBird](https://inetgeek.com/compare/tailscale-vs-netbird/)