Tailscale connects people, devices, servers and AI agents over private encrypted networks, with access decided by who you are rather than which network you are on. Developers, IT and security teams use it to replace traditional VPNs, reach cloud and on-premises infrastructure, and control privileged access without exposing services to the internet or juggling firewall rules.
Each customer network, called a tailnet, is a peer-to-peer mesh built on the open source WireGuard protocol.
At A Glance
| Vendor | Tailscale |
|---|---|
| Category | Network security, zero trust connectivity, privileged access |
| Identities covered | Human users, devices, workloads, AI agents |
| Deployment | Client on each device, coordination server run by Tailscale, peer-to-peer data plane |
| Agentic AI | Aperture by Tailscale (Alpha and Beta) |
| Customers | Instacart, Duolingo, Revolut, Mistral AI, Cribl |
| Founded | 2019 |
| Market classification | Network Security |
What Tailscale Does
Classic VPNs send all traffic through a central concentrator and leave network rules scattered across firewalls. Devices on a tailnet connect straight to each other, across firewalls and NAT without port forwarding, and every connection is tied to a user or device identity from the customer’s identity provider. Access rules live in one policy file. Because the identity travels with each connection, the same network can carry remote access, cloud and Kubernetes connectivity, CI/CD workloads and AI agent traffic under one set of rules, without exposing any service to the internet.
Products
Business VPN
The business VPN gives distributed teams remote access to internal resources, including Kubernetes clusters, without a central gateway. When users need it, an exit node routes their internet traffic through the tailnet like a traditional VPN.
Tailscale PAM And Tailscale SSH
Tailscale PAM is for teams that need privileged access to SSH servers, Kubernetes and databases with an audit trail. Tailscale SSH handles authentication and authorisation of SSH connections inside the tailnet.
- The device’s node key authenticates, authorises and encrypts the session, so separate SSH key pairs are not needed
- Optional check mode makes a user re-authenticate with the identity provider before connecting, valid for 12 hours by default
- Session recording for audit and compliance
Aperture By Tailscale
Aperture is “Unified AI governance for AI agents and users.” It places a gateway between agents or users and AI model providers, so security teams can see and control model use without handing out provider keys. It provides one endpoint per model provider and a central inventory of providers and tools; credentials are stored once, so agents never hold or rotate them, and adding or revoking a provider becomes a policy change.
How It Works
Tailscale splits a light control plane from a mesh data plane.
| Component | What it does |
|---|---|
| Coordination server | Run by Tailscale, it is “essentially, a shared drop box for public keys” and holds the security policy in one place. |
| Data plane | Clients form encrypted WireGuard links directly with each other, and private keys never leave the device that created them. |
| NAT traversal | Direct connections are set up with techniques based on the STUN and ICE internet standards. |
| DERP relays | When no direct path exists, relays forward traffic that is already encrypted, without being able to read it. |
| Authentication | Sign-in is always handed to an OAuth2, OIDC or SAML identity provider. |
Identities And Systems Covered
| Human users | People signed in through their organisation’s identity provider. |
|---|---|
| Devices and nodes | Laptops, servers and other nodes, each with its own key. |
| Privileged targets | SSH servers, Kubernetes clusters and databases. |
| Workloads | Cloud, CI/CD, edge and IoT systems joined to the tailnet. |
| AI agents | Agents whose model access is tied to their Tailscale network identity rather than shared keys. |
Agentic AI Capabilities
Aperture applies the same identity-based policy to agents in development and production:
| Limits | Rate limits and spend caps per agent, team or organisation, and controls on which models each identity may call |
|---|---|
| Audit | Every request is logged with caller identity, model, provider, timestamp and token count, with export to S3 |
| Coding agents | MCP and local tool calls can be extracted from popular coding agents for review |
Integrations
| Area | Integrations |
|---|---|
| Identity providers | Apple, Google (Gmail, Google Workspace), GitHub, Microsoft (Office365, Active Directory, Microsoft Entra ID), Okta, OneLogin |
| Custom identity | Custom OpenID Connect providers |
| Logging | Aperture log export to Amazon S3 |
Company Background
| Headquarters | Toronto, Canada |
|---|---|
| Founded | 2019, by Avery Pennarun (CEO), David Carney (Chief Strategy Officer), David Crawshaw and Brad Fitzpatrick. |
| Funding | A $160 million Series C in April 2025 led by Accel. Investors also include CRV, Insight, HeavyBit and Uncork. |
Note: This overview is compiled from Tailscale’s publicly available information as of 4 November 2026. It is provided for information only. NHI Mgmt Group does not endorse any vendor, and nothing on this page represents the opinions of NHI Mgmt Group.