3 ms·

Zerotier almost got zero coverage, but it existed long before tailscale. It’s also not a YC company

by jbverschoor 4y ago

spapas82 4y ago
Exactly! That's the first time I hear about that. And there may be many more that we'll never learn about them.
- sascha_sl 4y ago
  If you want to run your own, there's also Nebula. Not as much of an HN darling, but still pretty popular.
  - spapas82 4y ago
    And i also know of headscale that's open source
anotherhue 4y ago
- sascha_sl 4y ago
  The first mention of WireGuard on tailscale.com is about 2/3 down the page. I wouldn't call that capitalizing on WG.
cassianoleal 4y ago
I used ZeroTier in the past. I have migrated to Tailscale because: * It allows for faster transfer speeds. * It's less laggy. * It takes less time to negotiate the P2P routes on "difficult" topologies (both peers behind CGNAT, for instance) * It actually just works (with ZT it was hit-and-miss. mostly hit but very frustrating when miss) * It was easier to run on my router and just use that as a gateway, as opposed to meshing all my devices (I did this with ZT but there was quite a bit of configuration and trial-and-error required -- TS just works) Perhaps TS gets more coverage because people like it better? Disclaimer: not affiliated with either company, just a happy user - despite the issue with identity providers.
- jbverschoor 4y ago
  I dunno.. just seems that YC companies get more upvotes/weight/whatever. Makes sense, but it should be transparent.
  - dang 4y ago
    Besides Tailscale not being a YC company, YC companies do not get more upvotes/weight/whatever on HN. They have to fight for attention alongside everybody else and I can tell you that they mostly find it just as frustrating. There is one big exception to this, which is Launch HNs as described in https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html#yc https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html#yc. Each YC startup only gets one of those, and they're clearly indicated.
_kocq 4y ago
ZeroTier was arguably the pioneer in this market, but aside from being too early, their product was not nearly as polished or fast. Their clients are also closed source and they actively went after third party coordination servers, wherenas I hear headscale mentioned by tailscale employees all the time. Tailscale goes for adoption by convincing enthusiasts that might also be decision makers. ZeroTier thought it could just survive on its own merit, in a time where "Zero Trust" as a concept was almost entirely unknown.
- password4321 4y ago
  > they actively went after third party coordination servers Can you point me to more information about this? According to my limited understanding, the ZeroTier coordination server is open source.
- api 4y ago
  > they actively went after third party coordination servers, wherenas I hear headscale mentioned by tailscale employees all the time. ZeroTier founder here. We never did anything remotely like that, so I'm curious about where in the world you heard that. Is someone out there saying that? We regularly tell people about FOSS stuff like this: https://github.com/key-networks/ztncui https://github.com/key-networks/ztncui We did adopt an AGPL or SSPL style licensing strategy a while back to discourage closed for-profit attempts to basically expropriate the product. We are considering going back to a more liberal license in the future since that issue seems to have lessened. But we never had any issue with FOSS or not-for-profit stuff using ZeroTier.
mrkurt 4y ago
Tailscale is not a YC company.
- jbverschoor 4y ago
  Hmmm that’s unexpected
  - dang 4y ago
    It's because they're favored by the HN community. Few startups manage to achieve this 'darling' status on HN. I wrote about this phenomenon here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30070287 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30070287 - in the bottom third of the comment, starting with "Stripe succeeded on HN". (Skip the tedious stuff before that.)
tptacek 4y ago
Tailscale isn't a YC company, either.

Zerotier almost got zero coverage, but it existed long before tailscale. It’s also not a YC company

spapas82 4y ago

Exactly! That's the first time I hear about that. And there may be many more that we'll never learn about them.

sascha_sl 4y ago
If you want to run your own, there's also Nebula. Not as much of an HN darling, but still pretty popular.
- spapas82 4y ago
  And i also know of headscale that's open source

anotherhue 4y ago

sascha_sl 4y ago
The first mention of WireGuard on tailscale.com is about 2/3 down the page. I wouldn't call that capitalizing on WG.

cassianoleal 4y ago

I used ZeroTier in the past. I have migrated to Tailscale because: * It allows for faster transfer speeds. * It's less laggy. * It takes less time to negotiate the P2P routes on "difficult" topologies (both peers behind CGNAT, for instance) * It actually just works (with ZT it was hit-and-miss. mostly hit but very frustrating when miss) * It was easier to run on my router and just use that as a gateway, as opposed to meshing all my devices (I did this with ZT but there was quite a bit of configuration and trial-and-error required -- TS just works) Perhaps TS gets more coverage because people like it better? Disclaimer: not affiliated with either company, just a happy user - despite the issue with identity providers.

jbverschoor 4y ago
I dunno.. just seems that YC companies get more upvotes/weight/whatever. Makes sense, but it should be transparent.
- dang 4y ago
  Besides Tailscale not being a YC company, YC companies do not get more upvotes/weight/whatever on HN. They have to fight for attention alongside everybody else and I can tell you that they mostly find it just as frustrating. There is one big exception to this, which is Launch HNs as described in https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html#yc https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html#yc. Each YC startup only gets one of those, and they're clearly indicated.

_kocq 4y ago

ZeroTier was arguably the pioneer in this market, but aside from being too early, their product was not nearly as polished or fast. Their clients are also closed source and they actively went after third party coordination servers, wherenas I hear headscale mentioned by tailscale employees all the time. Tailscale goes for adoption by convincing enthusiasts that might also be decision makers. ZeroTier thought it could just survive on its own merit, in a time where "Zero Trust" as a concept was almost entirely unknown.

password4321 4y ago
> they actively went after third party coordination servers Can you point me to more information about this? According to my limited understanding, the ZeroTier coordination server is open source.
api 4y ago
> they actively went after third party coordination servers, wherenas I hear headscale mentioned by tailscale employees all the time. ZeroTier founder here. We never did anything remotely like that, so I'm curious about where in the world you heard that. Is someone out there saying that? We regularly tell people about FOSS stuff like this: https://github.com/key-networks/ztncui https://github.com/key-networks/ztncui We did adopt an AGPL or SSPL style licensing strategy a while back to discourage closed for-profit attempts to basically expropriate the product. We are considering going back to a more liberal license in the future since that issue seems to have lessened. But we never had any issue with FOSS or not-for-profit stuff using ZeroTier.

mrkurt 4y ago

Tailscale is not a YC company.

jbverschoor 4y ago
Hmmm that’s unexpected
- dang 4y ago
  It's because they're favored by the HN community. Few startups manage to achieve this 'darling' status on HN. I wrote about this phenomenon here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30070287 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30070287 - in the bottom third of the comment, starting with "Stripe succeeded on HN". (Skip the tedious stuff before that.)

tptacek 4y ago

Tailscale isn't a YC company, either.