I ditched a $120/year VPN subscription for Tailscale’s free tier — here’s why

A ZDNET journalist decided to cancel his paid VPN subscription and switch to Tailscale's free tier. Over the past year and a half, he spent nearly $120 on VPN services but realized he wasn't getting enough value: he spends only a handful of days abroad each year, and at home he doesn't need constant traffic encryption.

His actual need was secure access to his devices and services while traveling, making his connection appear to come from his home network. Tailscale's free tier promised exactly that. After switching, he hasn't looked back.

The idea is straightforward: when traveling, internet traffic is routed through a device at home, so websites and services see it as if the user is accessing them from home. Previously, this setup required a Raspberry Pi or a mini PC, but Tailscale now offers core functionality on Android. The journalist uses a spare Google Pixel 9a as his exit node.

Setup involves installing Tailscale on all devices, signing into the same account, and enabling the exit node feature on the home Android device. After that, all traffic from a laptop or phone while traveling passes through the home node.

Tailscale's free tier limits the network to three users and 100 devices, which is more than enough for a single person. The service runs in the background without requiring manual start or stop, unlike traditional VPN clients. It works seamlessly and remains invisible during normal use.

The only downside is that Tailscale does not hide the IP address from websites and is not suitable for bypassing regional content restrictions. If that's the goal, a paid VPN remains necessary. But for secure access to a home network and devices, Tailscale's free tier turned out to be a full replacement.