About WireGuard

WireGuard is an open source network tunneling protocol for creating encrypted communication channels. It’s designed to replace other VPN protocols, such as OpenVPN and IPSec, as a simpler and lighter-weight alternative. The protocol maintains concurrent connections with minimal overhead per session. Independent cryptographers have reviewed the WireGuard protocol, and security auditors have examined the code implementation, identifying and allowing for the correction of minor issues. You can learn more about WireGuard's technical details in their whitepaper.

Tailscale builds on top of WireGuard and adds additional components such as NAT traversal, TCP transport capabilities, and access control policies. Tailscale's implementation differs from standard WireGuard implementations in several ways. For example, where WireGuard provides encrypted tunnels between endpoints, Tailscale constructs a mesh network topology with additional network services and authentication mechanisms. Tailscale maintains a fork of the open source wireguard-go package, which comes with Tailscale clients.