Protocol and Network Structure#

ZeroTier uses a proprietary protocol, while Tailscale uses WireGuard. Both ZeroTier and Tailscale provide custom relay servers, namely MOON and DERP servers. In terms of network structure, ZeroTier is a P2P network, while Tailscale is a Mesh network.

Connection Stability (The Biggest Difference)#

Tailscale is much more stable than ZeroTier.

• In Tailscale’s network, if a node has no data exchange with other nodes, it goes into idle state. When data exchange begins, traffic is first relayed through the DERP server, while NAT traversal is attempted at the same time. For clients, you can check the connection status with the tailscale status command.
• In ZeroTier’s network, by default it tries to connect to all nodes and performs NAT traversal directly. ZeroTier’s MOON server will automatically relay when the connection is unstable. For clients, you can check the connection status with the zerotier-cli peers command.

WARNING

However, ZeroTier’s MOON server only provides UDP relay; by default it does not provide TCP relay! If you want TCP relay, you need to compile and configure the source code yourself, which is very troublesome. And under domestic (China) network conditions, UDP relay is basically unusable, which means nodes showing REPLYING are basically unable to connect.

This leads to the situation where, in ZeroTier, if either party is on a poor network, the connection becomes very unstable, or even impossible. Tailscale doesn’t have this problem.

NAT Traversal (Speed)#

ZeroTier’s proprietary protocol does very well at NAT traversal. Tailscale’s WireGuard isn’t as good as ZeroTier’s.

Security#

They’re about the same; no real difference for ordinary people.