Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

OpenWrt VS TailScale

Compare OpenWrt VS TailScale and see what are their differences

OpenWrt logo OpenWrt

OpenWrt is an open-source firmware based on Linux for wireless routers

TailScale logo TailScale

Private networks made easy Connect all your devices using WireGuard, without the hassle. Tailscale makes it as easy as installing an app and signing in.
  • OpenWrt Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-10-14
  • TailScale Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-08-17

OpenWrt

Pricing URL
-
$ Details
Release Date
-

TailScale

$ Details
Release Date
2019 January
Startup details
Country
Canada
State
Ontario
City
Toronto
Founder(s)
Avery Pennarun
Employees
10 - 19

OpenWrt videos

Upgrading Your Home Router to OpenWRT and Why It Is Worth It

More videos:

  • Review - Playing with OpenWrt Wireless Settings
  • Review - Make Your TP-LINK Router into a High Power Router with OpenWrt

TailScale videos

The Byte - Tailscale Private networks made easy

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to OpenWrt and TailScale)
Operating Systems
100 100%
0% 0
VPN
0 0%
100% 100
Linux
100 100%
0% 0
Security & Privacy
0 0%
100% 100

User comments

Share your experience with using OpenWrt and TailScale. For example, how are they different and which one is better?
Log in or Post with

Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare OpenWrt and TailScale

OpenWrt Reviews

Best pfSense Software Alternatives and Competitors
Both pfSense and OpenWRT are formidable and versatile alternatives for network administration software. While OpenWRT is designed for embedded devices such as routers, Pfsense focuses on firewalls and routing functions that are more complex. Pfsense is more user-friendly, while OpenWRT provides more configuration options. Both are supported by thriving online communities...
The Best Open Source Router OS Software for Large or Small Networks
OpenWrt also offers a range of advanced networking configurations, including support for Quality of Service (QoS), network address translation (NAT), and virtual LAN (VLAN) tagging. These features make OpenWrt an attractive option for businesses and organizations that require more advanced networking capabilities. The open-source nature of OpenWrt means that users can...
Best free Linux router and firewall distributions of 2023
Unlike IPFire, OpenWRT has a large number of optional packages in its repository. As a result, you can configure this OS in countless different ways. Most importantly, OpenWRT has drivers for all hardware supported by Linux. This means that almost all Wireless hardware is supported, making it the most versatile OS for creating Access Points.
Source: teklager.se
Top 7 pfSense Alternatives
OpenWRT is made primarily to replace the software on existing routers, but it can also run on x86 (PCs, server hardware, VMs) machines. It is a very mature OS and has some of the best Wi-Fi support around, unlike a lot of other router software options. It has a pretty good GUI and a ton of add-on packages.
7 Best Router Firmware | Open Source | 2022
OpenWrt Project is a Linux based alternative open source firmware for routers in 2022 and embedded systems. And it is one of the best Open Source Firmware that offers you an utterly writable filesystem along with package management. It allows for full customization and lets you customize the device for any application.
Source: viralhax.com

TailScale Reviews

  1. They make the already great wireguard even better! Installation and configuration is a breeze, can easily connect to machines behind firewall(s) without altering anything.

    Definitely made life easier.


7 Ngrok Alternatives & Competitors for App Tunneling, Free & Paid
Tailscale allows you to create a secure virtual private network between your servers, computers, and cloud instances using the WireGuard protocol from a binary executable.
Source: onboardbase.com

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, TailScale should be more popular than OpenWrt. It has been mentiond 504 times since March 2021. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

OpenWrt mentions (103)

  • Recommendation for a wifi router with L2TP or other VPN server support?
    If your current router supports a custom firmware like openWRT then you could do this without having to buy a new one. Source: 6 months ago
  • OpenWrt Site Account Creation
    Unfortunately, I can't create an account via Github on the openwrt site. Source: 8 months ago
  • openwrt.org not loading
    Anyone else having trouble reaching openwrt.org right now? I can't get the forums, main page or downloads. I've done plenty of troubleshooting and there isn't anything else on my network having trouble reaching anything else on the internet. Source: 9 months ago
  • Things just got a little weird, my current network is down, I'm a newb trying to start from the ground up and I found out I actually have another (newer) wifi router.... what to do?
    On the router. openwrt.org has lots of great documentation that lays out exactly what you're looking for and then some. Source: 12 months ago
  • As of June 2023, what is the best router that I could buy specifically for ease of use with all things pi-hole related
    Is the Verizon one a combined modem/router? If you want to add your own router, you might have to call them and ask them to put it into bridged mode. I like OpenWRT because it gives you a lot of customization options. I've just been running it on an old TP-Link Archer C7 for the past 5 years or so and I haven't had any issues, but that's ancient hardware now. Source: 12 months ago
View more

TailScale mentions (504)

  • Enhancing AWS VPC Security: Accessing Your Network with a Private Jumpbox using Tailscale
    In today's cloud-centric world, ensuring the security of your AWS resources is paramount. I was recently working on a cloud project and wanted a secure way to access the VPC remotely without using EC2 Instance Connect. This is when I came up with the idea to try using Tailscale VPN. I had already been tinkering with Tailscale on my home network and noticed how powerful it was. In this post, I will share how you... - Source: dev.to / 5 days ago
  • A list of SaaS, PaaS and IaaS offerings that have free tiers of interest to devops and infradev
    Tailscale — Zero config VPN, using the open-source WireGuard protocol. Installs on MacOS, iOS, Windows, Linux, and Android devices. Free plan for personal use with 100 devices and three users. - Source: dev.to / 4 months ago
  • 🛡️4 Top Database Security Tools in 2024 🏆🔥
    Tailscale is a VPN service that makes the devices and applications you own accessible anywhere in the world, securely and effortlessly. It enables encrypted point-to-point connections using the open source WireGuard® protocol, which means only devices on your private network can communicate with each other. - Source: dev.to / 4 months ago
  • I have made a smalll NAS server using samba. What is the port to fwd to get to it externally
    Tailscale is another way of doing it. I'm using it to access my Pi's Samba shares from my phone but it works from Windows as well. Source: 6 months ago
  • Macbook air M1 used with Remote Desktop
    My recommendation would be to use Tailscale (https://tailscale.com/) so you don't expose RDP to the internet. The basic Remote Desktop Client will work but if you want something more complex, Remote Desktop Manager is great https://devolutions.net/remote-desktop-manager/. Source: 6 months ago
View more

What are some alternatives?

When comparing OpenWrt and TailScale, you can also consider the following products

pfSense - pfSense is a free and open source firewall and router that also features unified threat management, load balancing, multi WAN, and more

ZeroTier - Extremely simple P2P Encrypted VPN

MikroTik RouterOS - The main product of MikroTik is a Linux-based operating system known as MikroTik RouterOS.

OpenVPN - OpenVPN - The Open Source VPN

OPNsense - OPNsense® you next open source firewall. Free Download. High-end Security Made Easy™. Offers Intrusion Prevention, Captive Portal, Traffic Shaping and more.

ngrok - ngrok enables secure introspectable tunnels to localhost webhook development tool and debugging tool.