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NordLayer vs Tailscale comparison

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Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

iboss
Sponsored
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
23
Ranking in other categories
Secure Web Gateways (SWG) (6th), Internet Security (3rd), Web Content Filtering (1st), Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) (6th), ZTNA as a Service (6th), Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) (6th)
NordLayer
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.2
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
Secure Web Gateways (SWG) (35th), Network Access Control (NAC) (20th), Internet Security (15th), Enterprise Infrastructure VPN (23rd), ZTNA as a Service (24th), ZTNA (19th), Customer Identity and Access Management (CIAM) (32nd), Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) (24th)
Tailscale
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
26
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise Infrastructure VPN (2nd), ZTNA (2nd)
 

Featured Reviews

Ashok Ananthula - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Consultant Proxy Engineering at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Cloud gateway has strengthened remote web security and now needs better Mac and ISP support
The problem our organization had is that iboss failed for the Mac devices. It is not able to give a successful agent for the Mac agents. That is where in 2025, we had to migrate to the Palo Alto-based platform. If your use case is for just Windows laptops,you can consider this platform as an option One issue is the data center resiliency part. In India especially, they are not tied up with the Tier 1 ISPs like Tata or Airtel; they were having Tier 2 ISPs and encountered many issues reaching few major sites that my organization depends on, and they were having problems that they could not fix quickly. They also lack a mechanism to route that traffic within their data center; rather, they ask customers to make a pac file change to route it to Singapore explicitly. It would be better if they route from their backend , i mean even if I send it to India DC, they should be able to route it internally to make that work; however, they fail to do that and ask the customer to route it in the pac file. Another suggestion is that in China, they do not have the proper setup; they used to have numerous problems with slowness and lack of premium circuits in China as well. That leads to multiple sites working slowly with latency-related issues. So the main issue is the ISP-related problems that need to be solved.
Christophe Derdeyn - PeerSpot reviewer
Partner delaware Singapore at delaware Singapore
A convenient and easy tool with an incredibly high number of dialing points
The solution is convenient and easy. It has an incredibly high number of dialing points for pretty much every single country in the world. It has a few additional security features. It has a function that prevents unsecured access if my connection were to drop for any reason. It’s something I like. It has threat protection features. It can protect my web connection and files against malicious downloads and trackers.
Adeniyi Stephen - PeerSpot reviewer
DevOps Engineer at CloudKite.io
Secure access has simplified hybrid connectivity and has unified multi-cluster workflows
I would say that in terms of Tailscale, if I have so many tailnets I need to connect to, there are some issues in the login process that need a little bit of attention from the Tailscale team. Sometimes, you would probably need to restart your entire system for it to connect. As a DevOps as a Service engineer, I have so many clients that are using Tailscale, and I would need to connect to maybe five different tailnets because they are different clients. Client A might have a Tailscale, Client B, Client C, and so on. When changing between tailnets, sometimes it hangs. Sometimes you might need to restart your entire system. This is a bit of a headache in that aspect. However, I believe if you are just using a particular tailnet, just one, then it is quite easy and there won't be any headache. For me, I think it can be improved in the aspect of having multiple tailnets to connect to. A good refresh on the Tailscale side and the backend side to refresh the connection anytime there is a new connection to be made would be helpful. Instead of needing to restart the system, it should be able to refresh itself. The connection side and connecting to multiple Tailscale instances can be problematic, and sometimes you have to restart your system when switching between them. The ACL sometimes is like another language on its own entirely. It is fine, but they need to make it in a YAML format instead of the current format because it is quite new and something you have to go and study. If they can make it like a YAML format, that would be better. Aside from the switching which I mentioned and the fact that you have to relearn their ACL, if the ACL could be in a YAML format instead of JSON format, that would be beneficial. I don't think there is much they can do about the switching of tailnets, but if they can have a YAML format of the ACL, that would be good. Every other thing is a ten out of ten. The connection-wise is easy to set up and easy to install. It is good to have things connected all together from on-premises, from so many environments, and even exit nodes as well. It is good overall. The pricing, I think Tailscale can be a little bit on the higher side. It is not for teams with just small users. If you want to set it up for small users and a small startup, I don't think you can afford it and might need to go to other open-source alternatives. It is good for teams that have maybe fifty plus users or one hundred users. In terms of pricing, I would say it is on the higher side, but it is worth it. The price is worth the functionality. As a user, I would say it is more on the higher side, but based on its functionality, it is worth the price.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"iboss is easy to use despite its complexity. Multiple engineers manage it, but it's significantly more straightforward to administer than traditional VPNs and web proxies."
"iboss is among the few products providing inline filtering where no application is needed on the device. It operates on the network side and is not device-based. This feature was one of the main reasons why we stayed with them for so long."
"Our primary use case for this product is DLP,"
"Granular setup, which was able to set different levels of filters using the OUs in the AD."
"The iboss system is highly reliable. The false positive rates are small compared to some other systems we've experienced through other partner agencies who use competing solutions."
"I would definitely recommend iboss for web filtering purposes to other organizations or individuals."
"Iboss is a solution that prevents advanced persistent threats, and has a zero tolerance for attacks."
"Its initial setup was straightforward."
"The solution is convenient and easy."
"The best features Tailscale offers for me are how easily we can connect to different clusters and different systems."
"Tailscale's best features include the ability to seamlessly integrate and add devices, exit nodes, a very simple UI that is easy to set up, and importantly, access to a CLI so that my agents can set up Tailscale for me."
"For my organization, we use Tailscale for our database as a secure way to access our VPC, and it is an easy, lightweight, and very useful way for everyone to connect and disconnect with a very nice UI."
"Tailscale has positively impacted my organization by allowing us to speed up development without worrying about GDPR restrictions."
"The most positive impact Tailscale has had on my organization is significant."
"Tailscale is a very solid framework and is very useful for smaller companies if they want to start out or even bigger companies who want to have a robust network of devices that they want to manage."
"Tailscale has positively impacted my organization with shorter time for setting up connections and improved accessibility."
"There is no better option than this."
 

Cons

"I am currently doing a PoC of the zero trust aspect of it. Compared to other similar solutions, it is hard to get around each feature. It takes a while to get used to it."
"File integrity monitoring would be very advantageous as an additional feature."
"The area I would like to see improvement in is the ability with in the reporter to navigate directly to the content the user is traversing. It is kind of there, but it's not perfect. Quite frequently, I receive links that lead me to pages with error messages."
"I'd like to see them accelerate development on the security side, particularly around data loss prevention."
"For zero trust implementation, we encountered complexity issues, especially with a large infrastructure company ExxonMobil."
"I appreciate that iboss's single pane of glass console gives centralized visibility into web traffic, user activity, security policies, and alerts from one dashboard, allowing us to quickly investigate incidents and monitor policy violations without switching between multiple tools, improving operational efficiency; however, the dashboard customization and reporting could be more flexible."
"To scale up, a new iboss Node Blade Chassis must be purchased."
"Sometimes when you call in support, you get someone who is just following a sheet. It feels like a runaround. You feel that you are running into that support wall."
"The tool is not perfectly stable."
"I choose a seven because it sells what it does honestly, but I believe some more flexibility might be needed."
"I would not say anything in Tailscale's use case could be improved; what it does and its intended use is perfect, but the application on the laptop is a little buggy since it continuously opens in the background when it should not be."
"I think Tailscale can be improved by enhancing the free side of things."
"One thing I want Tailscale to improve is their user interface for Arch Linux, which is one of the devices I have that I installed Tailscale on, but they do not have the native package with full features, a capability I really want them to develop."
"The only improvement I see for Tailscale is that I would love to check out Headscale to fully host it on my own infrastructure."
"I am currently facing an issue where on my Mac, Tailscale does not allow me to log in to multiple accounts."
"However, I think improvements could be made in the support for UI clients, especially on Linux machines."
"Tailscale could be improved with more advanced network visibility and monitoring tools, cleaner pricing tiers for scaling teams, and enhanced built-in reporting for device posture and controls for enterprise environments."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The overall pricing for iboss is very competitive and transparent."
"It is not expensive, and it is also not cheap. iboss is priced right in the sweet spot for the number of features it offers."
"It is expensive compared to one of its competitors."
"It is probably in line with other solutions, but I do not deal with the financial side."
"We have not priced the solution recently, but they were competitive with other vendors in the past."
"We had the cost of purchasing a new appliance along with the implementation and licensing costs. However, the following year, the cost of just licensing was similar to what was paid the previous year for a new appliance along with the implementation and licensing costs."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Computer Software Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
12%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Construction Company
9%
Healthcare Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
15%
University
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business11
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise10
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business17
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise4
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with iboss?
I think iboss could be improved by making reporting and dashboard customization more flexible, and simplifying troubl...
What is your primary use case for iboss?
I use iboss as a cloud-based secure web gateway to provide secure internet access, web filtering, and protect remote ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for iboss?
My experience with iboss's pricing structure, setup cost, and licensing model has been positive, straightforward, and...
Ask a question
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What needs improvement with Tailscale?
I have a pretty basic use of Tailscale. I do not deploy it for a big organization, so I am generally happy with the p...
What is your primary use case for Tailscale?
My main use case for Tailscale is to access my home network remotely. In my home network, I have deployed a wide rang...
What advice do you have for others considering Tailscale?
I rate Tailscale overall a ten out of ten. I chose ten out of ten because the ease of installation, access to documen...
 

Also Known As

iBoss Cloud Platform
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Overview

 

Sample Customers

More than 4,000 global enterprises trust the iboss Cloud Platform to support their modern workforces, including a large number of Fortune 50 companies.
Hostinger, Shutterstock, USMobile, Soundcloud, Calendly, whatagraph.
Bamboo Health, Duolingo, Shiguredo, Instacart, Corelight, Machinify, Bolt, Mercari, Cobalt, Yugabyte, Jasper, VersaBank, Zego, Gini and Finter
Find out what your peers are saying about OpenVPN, Tailscale, Fortinet and others in Enterprise Infrastructure VPN. Updated: August 2026.
912,069 professionals have used our research since 2012.