Moving from TailScale to NetBird

Why?

I have been using TailScale from 4 years. Recently, I wanted to self-host HeadScale(open source TailScale server) on my own server.

During self hosting, I realised that HeadScale is not a drop-in replacement for TailScale.

App connectors are main reason I was using TailScale and HeadScale doesn't support app-connectors.

NetBird

NetBird is completely open source and has a self-hosted server. Setting up split DNS tunneling and routing is easier with NetBird.

It has a clean web UI to manage network/policies which is way better than TailScale's web UI.

It also has a cool control center to visualize the network and connected devices.

It still doesn't have support for light theme yet. Since I am not accustomed to dark theme, I am using Stylus extension and changing the theme to light theme.

html { filter: invert(1) hue-rotate(180deg); background: #fff; }
img, svg, video, canvas, [style*="background-image"] { filter: invert(1) hue-rotate(180deg); }

Conclusion

NetBird can be self-hosted in few minutes and migration is much smoother than I expected.