New check

Comparison

OpenZiti vs Tailscale

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

OpenZiti

Depends

Confidence: Medium

Choose it if you're a self-hoster or developer who wants free, self-hosted zero-trust networking and will invest in learning it.

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

OpenZiti versus Tailscale
Compare	OpenZiti	Tailscale
Verdict	Depends	Worth it
Best for	Self-hosters replacing VPNs	Dev teams needing server access
Who it's not for	Teams wanting plug-and-play VPN in minutes	Teams requiring a fully self-hosted control plane
Privacy	Active project with a public security page; two 2025 admin-console CVEs (XSS, SSRF) . patch promptly and keep the console private.¹¹	No known public vulnerabilities found in the sources reviewed.
Support quality	No support quality evidence found	No support evidence in sources
Public sentiment	Reddit and Hacker News users find OpenZiti powerful and enticing but frequently struggle with its complexity and compare it to Tailscale, Nebula, and ZeroTier.^⁵	G2 reviewers consistently praise Tailscale's ease of use and simple setup.
Biggest gotcha	Self-hosting means running controllers and routers yourself; NetFoundry Cloud pricing isn't public^⁴	Paid plan prices not published in reviewed sources . confirm before committing

Pick OpenZiti when

Self-hosters replacing VPNs
Developers embedding zero trust via SDKs
Homelab remote access (e.g. Home Assistant)
Network engineers building ZTNA

When OpenZiti is not a fit

Teams wanting plug-and-play VPN in minutes
Non-technical buyers needing managed support
Anyone without time to learn controllers and policies
Small teams a hosted mesh already covers

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

OpenZiti: Zero Trust Networking, Secured by Identitynetfoundry.io
official
openziti/ziti: The parent projectgithub.com
official
Announcing OpenZiti v1.0blog.openziti.io
official
NetFoundry Cloud for OpenZitinetfoundry.io
official
Has anyone tried OpenZiti? (r/selfhosted)reddit.com
review
HELP! I still don't understand what is OpenZiti (r/openziti)reddit.com
review
OpenZiti looks so enticing... (Hacker News)news.ycombinator.com
review
Slow connection using Ziti (Discourse)openziti.discourse.group
review
NetFoundry seller reviews (G2)g2.com
review
CVE-2025-27501 (NVD)nvd.nist.gov
security
CVE-2025-27500 (SentinelOne)sentinelone.com
security
NetFoundry raises new venture roundopenziti.discourse.group
news
OpenZiti Ranked #1 Open-Source Zero Trust Toollinkedin.com
news
Tailscale homepagetailscale.com
official
Tailscale on AWS Marketplaceaws.amazon.com
official
Tailscale product security pagetailscale.com
official