I switched to a Tailscale alternative for 6 months, and I can’t see myself going back

The author had initially tried Tailscale as a mesh VPN, which satisfied most of their needs. However, they eventually switched to self-hosted NetBird after experiencing issues with ease-of-use in a pure WireGuard setup. NetBird provides a comparable experience to Tailscale, but with the added control of self-hosted infrastructure.

NetBird's control plane is comprised of management server, signal server, and relay, which handle peer configurations, connections, and traffic encryption, respectively. The author hosts these services on a VPS in Toronto under their domain. Tailscale's cloud deployment handles the control plane, but the author prefers self-hosting for greater control and customization.

The author highlights the benefits of self-hosting NetBird, including being able to customize the mesh VPN, avoid dependency on someone else's infrastructure, and access additional features such as a built-in reverse proxy. This reverse proxy allows the author to expose services like Jellyfin and TeamSpeak on their domain without opening inbound ports.

The reverse proxy also supports Layer 4 protocols like raw TCP, UDP, and TLS passthrough, enabling the author to run port-forwarded services like TeamSpeak and game servers using the NetBird mesh.

While Tailscale's Funnel feature is comparable to NetBird's reverse proxy, it has limitations such as limited port support, managed connections, and bandwidth caps. NetBird's self-hosted control plane offers more flexibility, customization, and freedom from limitations, making it a more appealing choice for the author. The author emphasizes the importance of control and openness in their VPN solution and has found NetBird to be the perfect fit for their requirements.