# Free Alternative to ZeroTier Published January 1, 2026 · Updated August 10, 2026 The best free alternative to ZeroTier ($18/month) is Tailscale. Install it with: `brew install --cask tailscale-app`. ## Best Free Alternatives to ZeroTier for Mac ZeroTier still makes mesh networking feel simple, but the pricing that arrived in late 2024 has held into August 2026. Free Personal is 10 devices on one network. Essential is $18 per month for 10 devices and $2 for each extra device. Scale is $179 per month for 100 devices and $1.80 for each extra, all listed on zerotier.com/pricing. Tailscale is the usual free swap for most Mac users. Its Personal plan is free and includes unlimited devices for your user, up to six users, and around 50 tagged resources to start. It is built on WireGuard and ships a polished macOS app you install with `brew install --cask tailscale-app`, version 1.102.x in this check. If you want no vendor control plane at all, `wireguard-tools` from Homebrew gives you the WireGuard protocol directly. You get speed and a small codebase, but you handle NAT traversal and key distribution yourself. The difference matters. ZeroTier emulates an L2 Ethernet segment and has specific stories for IoT and air gapped networks that do not map one to one to Tailscale's WireGuard model. If you already run ZeroTier Central for hundreds of devices or you rely on those topology tricks, moving has a cost. For a homelab or a small team of up to six people, Tailscale usually removes that $18 Essential bill. ## Free alternatives 1. [Tailscale](https://bundl.run/apps/tailscale-app) — Mesh VPN based on WireGuard `brew install --cask tailscale-app` ## Verdict ZeroTier free is 10 devices on one network, Essential is $18 per month. Tailscale Personal is free for up to six users with no device cap. Raw WireGuard is free and hands on. Pay for ZeroTier only when you need its specific L2 topology or you already run it at scale. ## FAQ ### is tailscale completely free for personal use Yes. Tailscale Personal is free and does not expire. You get up to six users and unlimited devices for each user, plus MagicDNS, exit nodes and built in SSH. You miss some enterprise controls such as SAML SSO and device posture, which sit on paid plans. For a single person or a small household the free tier is generous and avoids the $18 per month that ZeroTier charges for its Essential tier. ### can i use tailscale to replace zerotier for my homelab Yes, and for most homelabs it is an improvement. Personal has no device cap, unlike ZeroTier at 10 devices, so you can add Macs, a NAS, Raspberry Pis and cloud VMs without counting. WireGuard gives good throughput for Plex, file shares or game servers. Subnet routing lets one tailnet node advertise a whole local range, so printers or cameras that cannot run Tailscale are still reachable. MagicDNS removes the need to track IPs by hand. ### why did zerotier change their pricing in 2025 ZeroTier moved to usage based pricing in late 2024 and early 2025 and cut the free tier. Before that, free covered up to 10 devices in a more generous way. Current free is 10 devices on one network, and serious use pushes you to Essential at $18 per month. The company said the change was needed to sustain the service. Holders kept old entitlements for a while, but new users felt the lower limits right away. ### is wireguard better than zerotier's protocol WireGuard has clear technical advantages for most people. The codebase is about 4,000 lines, it has been audited and verified, and it is in the Linux kernel. That small surface is easier to review than ZeroTier's larger stack. Benchmarks usually show WireGuard with lower latency and higher throughput. ZeroTier still handles certain multi network overlays differently, so if you rely on those L2 behaviors you should test before you switch. ### can i run tailscale and zerotier at the same time Yes. They use different virtual interfaces, Tailscale on utun and ZeroTier on zt, so there is no conflict. Many people run both during a move. Keep ZeroTier up, add Tailscale, check that the routes and DNS you need work, then remove ZeroTier device by device. A few users keep both long term to bridge different segments, but that adds complexity you can usually avoid. ### does tailscale have a device limit like zerotier No on Personal. Tailscale does not cap devices for your user. ZeroTier charges $2 for each device beyond the 10 included in Essential. With Tailscale you can connect 10 devices or 100 without a fee. The cap that does exist is users, six on the free plan. For homelabs with many VMs, containers and boards that model is much cheaper. ### is tailscale secure for sensitive data Tailscale is built around WireGuard's ChaCha20 Poly1305 encryption and end to end keys that never leave your devices. Coordination servers handle auth and key exchange, they do not see traffic or private keys. The code is open and has been audited. On paid plans you can add device posture checks, require 2FA through your SSO provider and enforce ACLs. Several security sensitive teams use it in production. ### what happens if tailscale's servers go down Servers handle coordination, not the data plane. Once tunnels are up, traffic flows peer to peer between your devices, so an outage does not drop existing connections. You cannot add new devices or change policy until the service returns, but what is already connected stays up. For infrastructure that cannot accept that dependency, Tailscale offers a self hosted alternative on the enterprise plan, and the community project Headscale provides a self hosted control server for advanced operators. ### can i self host tailscale like i can with zerotier There is a community project called Headscale that hosts the Tailscale control plane, but it is not an official Tailscale product and it needs operational care. ZeroTier's core is open source in a more straightforward way. Unless you are comfortable running that control plane yourself, most people are better off using Tailscale's hosted service, which cannot decrypt traffic by design. ### will i notice performance differences between tailscale and zerotier Most people do. WireGuard's ChaCha20 is fast on mobile CPUs without AES acceleration, so battery life on laptops and phones is often better. Throughput tests usually show WireGuard saturating a gigabit link with lower CPU than ZeroTier's protocol. Connection after wake from sleep is also quicker. Tailscale tends to reconnect almost instantly, while ZeroTier can take a few seconds to find a new path. For games or remote desktop that difference is noticeable. ## Sources - [ZeroTier pricing](https://www.zerotier.com/pricing/) - [ZeroTier pricing KB](https://zerotier.crisp.help/en/article/pricing-1xjjfaw/) - [Tailscale pricing](https://tailscale.com/pricing?plan=personal) - [Tailscale pricing update](https://tailscale.com/blog/pricing-v4) - [Homebrew Tailscale](https://formulae.brew.sh/cask/tailscale-app) - [Homebrew ZeroTier](https://formulae.brew.sh/cask/zerotier-one) - [WireGuard](https://www.wireguard.com/) - [Homebrew wireguard-tools](https://formulae.brew.sh/formula/wireguard-tools) ## Related - [Tailscale vs ZeroTier](https://bundl.run/compare/tailscale-vs-zerotier) - [Tailscale vs Pangolin](https://bundl.run/compare/pangolin-vs-tailscale) ```json { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@graph": [ { "@type": "Organization", "@id": "https://bundl.run/#organization", "name": "Bundl.run", "url": "https://bundl.run", "logo": { "@type": "ImageObject", "url": "https://bundl.run/og-image.png", "width": 1200, "height": 630 }, "description": "The Ninite for Mac. 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