[ezfe]

It's kinda a VPN.

Tailscale on its own is a mesh network that allows your devices to communicate (in a VPN, technically, yes) between themselves.

If you have an exit node, then you can route your traffic to that exit node in the way most people think of a VPN.

It also has Mullvad integration, providing Mullvad servers as exit nodes.

If you use an exit node, then its functionally equivalent to a VPN with fancy features.