Comparison

Inlets vs Tailscale

Inlets lands on Depends, and Tailscale lands on Worth it.

Inlets

Depends

Confidence: Medium

Buy if you're a developer or platform team comfortable provisioning your own tunnel servers and want control ngrok doesn't give you.

Read the full report

Tailscale

Worth it

Confidence: Medium

Buy if you need fast, secure access to servers, homelabs, or multi-cloud . the free tier makes trying it risk-free.

Read the full report

Inlets versus Tailscale
Compare	Inlets	Tailscale
Verdict	Depends	Worth it
Best for	Developers exposing local dev servers	Dev teams needing server access
Who it's not for	Non-technical users . expect CLI, cloud provisioning, and docs	Teams requiring a fully self-hosted control plane
Privacy	No known public vulnerabilities found in the sources reviewed.^⁵	No known public vulnerabilities found in the sources reviewed.
Support quality	No support evidence found	No support evidence in sources
Public sentiment	Independent user reviews are scarce; discussion is limited to developer forums and a third-party ngrok comparison.^⁹	G2 reviewers consistently praise Tailscale's ease of use and simple setup.¹⁵
Biggest gotcha	Only the $25 Personal tier is publicly priced; team and enterprise costs unclear^²	Paid plan prices not published in reviewed sources . confirm before committing

Pick Inlets when

Developers exposing local dev servers
Kubernetes and platform teams
Self-hosters wanting traffic control
SaaS providers embedding tunnels

When Inlets is not a fit

Non-technical users . expect CLI, cloud provisioning, and docs
Teams wanting zero-setup managed tunnels
Buyers needing vendor compliance certifications . none published
Anyone unwilling to subscribe; free hosted tier unconfirmed

Pick Tailscale when

Dev teams needing server access
Homelab & self-hosters
Multi-cloud mesh networking
IoT remote access

When Tailscale is not a fit

Teams requiring a fully self-hosted control plane
Orgs that won't route coordination via a third party
Buyers needing transparent published pricing upfront
Air-gapped or offline-only environments

Sources

Inlets - The Cloud Native Tunnelinlets.dev
official
inlets Subscription Pricinginlets.dev
official
Inlets Docs Overviewdocs.inlets.dev
official
inlets-pro: Secure HTTP and TCP tunnelsgithub.com
official
inlets Product Security Pageinlets.dev
security
inletsctl - create inlets servers on top cloud platformsgithub.com
official
inlets PRO launch dayblog.alexellis.io
official
Comprehensive Guide: Implementing inletsmedium.com
review
A Tour of Inlets - r/kubernetesreddit.com
review
ngrok vs. inlets Comparisoninstatunnel.substack.com
news
Best Inlets Alternatives - StackSharestackshare.io
review
Tailscale homepagetailscale.com
official
Tailscale on AWS Marketplaceaws.amazon.com
official
Tailscale product security pagetailscale.com
official
Tailscale G2 reviewsg2.com
review
Tailscale seller rating on G2g2.com
review