[zie]

> And we only use Tailscale as a glorified VPN, we don't use their hundreds of extra random features like this SSH one.

Same, you are not alone. The Tailscale VPN stuff just works. None of their competitors can claim this that I'm aware of. We tried several other products and none of them were as reliable and 'just worked'. I imagine they spend a lot of time just keeping that stuff working.

[eightys3v3n]

I haven't had problems with NetBird on Android and Linux. I have also used tailscale and found it comparable.

[zie]

Neat, I haven't heard of/tried NetBird yet. Always more stuff out there to tinker with!

[eightys3v3n]

Word of warning. Netbird does use maginally more data than Tailscale when idle. While you might be tempted by the Jetbird thirdparty app, I found it used ALOT more data and didn't work consistontly even with lazy connections.

[formerly_proven]

Tailscale on iOS has always been highly unreliable for me, while the regular Wireguard app just works.

[zie]

Interesting! I use it only occasionally, but I don't leave the connection on. I only turn the iOS Tailscale connection on when I need to access resources behind Tailscale.

Are you having issues with it when it's always connected?

[formerly_proven]

It randomly and frequently turns off, then the connected services of course no longer work, then you turn it on manually, they still don’t work, then you hard kill safari a few times and/or toggle it on and off and it eventually works. On Linux or Windows the client is rock-solid however.

Meanwhile with wireguard: It just works. Every time. Every where. Unless someone blocks UDP.

[rudasn]

I have a hub and spoke wireguard nerwork that has been working somewhat perfectly for years, but there always are a couple of servers that just dont want to play nice. They connect to the hub, all good, and after a few minutes/hrs connection drops and handshakes fail. Using wireguard-go on docker (older linux machines) for all of them. Its a pain.

[traceroute66]

> Tailscale on iOS has always been highly unreliable for me

Its better than it used to be.

But the fundamental problem is that the Wireguard app is a simple GUI around `wireguard-go` built as a static C library via cgo. But Tailscale uses a fork of `wireguard-go` and then adds control client, DERP, NAT traversal etc. on top of it.

So there's quite a lot of "bloat" on top of the Wireguard code in Tailscale iOS and therefore your problem might not be Wireguard vs Wireguard implementation question but something happening elsewhere in the Tailscale code.

[Larrikin]

In what way has it been unreliable? All of my self hosted services sit on my local network with access provided by Tailscale. I navigate to the address and they just work.