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Netskope Private Access vs Tailscale comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Netskope Private Access
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
17
Ranking in other categories
ZTNA as a Service (15th)
Tailscale
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
26
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise Infrastructure VPN (2nd), ZTNA (2nd)
 

Featured Reviews

Prathamesh Samant - PeerSpot reviewer
Presales Manager at a manufacturing company with 201-500 employees
Has ensured secure remote access through real-time device checks and policy controls
There is a mixed review on the integration part of Netskope Private Access. Wherever they have out-of-the-box support, it is quite easy to integrate. Wherever customization is needed, it depends on the openness of the application being integrated with. If the other application has an open architecture where you have easy API integrations, then it becomes easier. However, in some cases, it is a tedious task to do the integration where the application is not that open or it is not supported out-of-the-box from Netskope. They can introduce the DLP feature for Netskope Private Access. Zscaler has that DLP feature. It is in their roadmap, but currently, they don't have it. If they have data protection or data loss prevention within their NPA, that would be a significant advantage.
Adeniyi Stephen - PeerSpot reviewer
DevOps Engineer at CloudKite.io
Secure access has simplified hybrid connectivity and has unified multi-cluster workflows
I would say that in terms of Tailscale, if I have so many tailnets I need to connect to, there are some issues in the login process that need a little bit of attention from the Tailscale team. Sometimes, you would probably need to restart your entire system for it to connect. As a DevOps as a Service engineer, I have so many clients that are using Tailscale, and I would need to connect to maybe five different tailnets because they are different clients. Client A might have a Tailscale, Client B, Client C, and so on. When changing between tailnets, sometimes it hangs. Sometimes you might need to restart your entire system. This is a bit of a headache in that aspect. However, I believe if you are just using a particular tailnet, just one, then it is quite easy and there won't be any headache. For me, I think it can be improved in the aspect of having multiple tailnets to connect to. A good refresh on the Tailscale side and the backend side to refresh the connection anytime there is a new connection to be made would be helpful. Instead of needing to restart the system, it should be able to refresh itself. The connection side and connecting to multiple Tailscale instances can be problematic, and sometimes you have to restart your system when switching between them. The ACL sometimes is like another language on its own entirely. It is fine, but they need to make it in a YAML format instead of the current format because it is quite new and something you have to go and study. If they can make it like a YAML format, that would be better. Aside from the switching which I mentioned and the fact that you have to relearn their ACL, if the ACL could be in a YAML format instead of JSON format, that would be beneficial. I don't think there is much they can do about the switching of tailnets, but if they can have a YAML format of the ACL, that would be good. Every other thing is a ten out of ten. The connection-wise is easy to set up and easy to install. It is good to have things connected all together from on-premises, from so many environments, and even exit nodes as well. It is good overall. The pricing, I think Tailscale can be a little bit on the higher side. It is not for teams with just small users. If you want to set it up for small users and a small startup, I don't think you can afford it and might need to go to other open-source alternatives. It is good for teams that have maybe fifty plus users or one hundred users. In terms of pricing, I would say it is on the higher side, but it is worth it. The price is worth the functionality. As a user, I would say it is more on the higher side, but based on its functionality, it is worth the price.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"The product's scalability is good."
"The initial setup of Netskope Private Access is pretty simple and straightforward."
"They do one software or one platform; they are the leading CASBY platform in the world, and what they can do, nobody can do."
"In the firewall, we don't have a user-based policies list, and we can't create them. Netskope helps us to create user-based policies. For example, if there are specific teams like HR or more than nine teams, and we want logs from access over particular URLs, and we don't want to allow that specific URL for certain users, we can create these policies in Netskope. It's handy, easy to use for new users, and has a cool GUI interface. We can create multiple policies, and as for the proxy, it's a leading solution."
"The main benefit for users from Netskope Private Access would be secure access from anywhere; they can easily access their systems or applications in their office premises or on-premises environment in a very secure way and the organization can also be assured knowing that whatever access they have been providing to their remote users goes through proper checks and balances before access is provided."
"The base features have been fantastic. The ability to be able to granularly assign application access to end-users has been really good."
"Netskope enables users to securely access private applications remotely without a VPN."
"We can block and alert the ports and allow the public traffic software in our environment."
"For my organization, we use Tailscale for our database as a secure way to access our VPC, and it is an easy, lightweight, and very useful way for everyone to connect and disconnect with a very nice UI."
"Tailscale has positively impacted my organization by allowing us to speed up development without worrying about GDPR restrictions."
"Tailscale has positively impacted my organization and consulting work by making remote connections easy, significantly reducing the friction and making this very reliable, even behind difficult networks with CGNAT or other situations that make establishing connections difficult using other means."
"Since implementing Tailscale, we have seen improved remote access reliability, reduced VPN maintenance overhead, faster onboarding for new users, and stronger security through identity-based access controls, all while significantly lowering the administrative workload."
"Tailscale's best features include the ability to seamlessly integrate and add devices, exit nodes, a very simple UI that is easy to set up, and importantly, access to a CLI so that my agents can set up Tailscale for me."
"I have been using it every day since June 2025, and it has never given me a problem."
"Tailscale is a very solid framework and is very useful for smaller companies if they want to start out or even bigger companies who want to have a robust network of devices that they want to manage."
"This quick setup with Tailscale has saved me probably days of work that I would have spent learning how to configure traditional VPN solutions, more traditional solutions like WireGuard, where I would have had to learn their entire configuration process and it would have taken days just to set that up."
 

Cons

"The main challenge we are facing across various Trust Network Access (TNA) technologies, including Netskope, is their inability to support broadcast applications or those relying on broadcasting protocols."
"The product is not easy to use."
"Netskope detects certain data or contents, but there are some limitations on how we can customize those policies for DLP."
"Netskope Private Access allows mapping only one DNS server. If a user uses a secondary DNS on-premises, Netskope fails to disconnect them. This is an issue that needs to be addressed."
"Netskope needs to provide some kind of data protection strategy as well because, currently, if you connect through private access, we don't have any data protection policies or implementation."
"In some cases, it is a tedious task to do the integration where the application is not that open or it is not supported out-of-the-box from Netskope."
"Netskope Private Access could improve by enhancing visibility of user performance and application performance. It should also integrate wider DLP and inspection engines on private access traffic."
"Netskope Private Access only supports TCP and UDP ports and does not support ICMP or ping."
"Currently, if Tailscale goes down, our services are not operable."
"However, I think improvements could be made in the support for UI clients, especially on Linux machines."
"Regarding how Tailscale can be improved, I think for free users, there are some limited options."
"Sometimes you might need to restart your entire system for it to connect."
"The only improvement I see for Tailscale is that I would love to check out Headscale to fully host it on my own infrastructure."
"I think Tailscale can be improved by enhancing the free side of things."
"One thing I want Tailscale to improve is their user interface for Arch Linux, which is one of the devices I have that I installed Tailscale on, but they do not have the native package with full features, a capability I really want them to develop."
"Tailscale could be improved with more advanced network visibility and monitoring tools, cleaner pricing tiers for scaling teams, and enhanced built-in reporting for device posture and controls for enterprise environments."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"When it comes to pricing, Netskope Private Access is relatively cheap compared to other solutions."
"It is not the most expensive option, being more affordable than Zscaler, but it's also not the most budget-friendly choice available."
"Netskope Private Access is more inexpensive than other products."
"The tool's price is normal. It is not very cheap but good compared to the competitors."
"There was about 60% ROI, just in terms of savings. We had 40% to 60% reduction in monthly operational costs by using Netskope."
"It is significantly cost-effective compared to its contenders."
"The pricing of the solution is cheap."
"I believe that the price for Netskope Private Access is included in the features or functionality my company purchased from NetSkope."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Insurance Company
7%
Comms Service Provider
15%
Financial Services Firm
9%
University
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise9
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business17
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise4
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Netskope Private Access?
There is a mixed review on the integration part of Netskope Private Access. Wherever they have out-of-the-box support, it is quite easy to integrate. Wherever customization is needed, it depends on...
What is your primary use case for Netskope Private Access?
For secure remote access for people who are working out of the office, remotely, or traveling, my clients mostly use Netskope Private Access to connect to the office environment, servers in the off...
What advice do you have for others considering Netskope Private Access?
I work with a system integrator, and nowadays, we have all these solutions in our portfolio for our customers. At that time we were partners with Palo Alto Cortex XDR. Now we have been partnering w...
What needs improvement with Tailscale?
I have a pretty basic use of Tailscale. I do not deploy it for a big organization, so I am generally happy with the product itself and have no special requests for a different feature that I would ...
What is your primary use case for Tailscale?
My main use case for Tailscale is to access my home network remotely. In my home network, I have deployed a wide range of microservices. For example, I use Tailscale to back up my pictures, and I n...
What advice do you have for others considering Tailscale?
I rate Tailscale overall a ten out of ten. I chose ten out of ten because the ease of installation, access to documentation, friendly UI, ease of tracking and debugging, and the facility I have to ...
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Evalueserve, Stroock, Apria, Ather Energy
Bamboo Health, Duolingo, Shiguredo, Instacart, Corelight, Machinify, Bolt, Mercari, Cobalt, Yugabyte, Jasper, VersaBank, Zego, Gini and Finter
Find out what your peers are saying about Netskope Private Access vs. Tailscale and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
909,725 professionals have used our research since 2012.