Serial Control vs Tailscale
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Serial Control
Create custom interfaces for serial devices from your smartphone or tablet. Design control pages with buttons and sliders, build command libraries, and automate actions based on device responses. Seamlessly integrate with StarTech.com serial products.
- Customizable control interfaces
- Command library builder
- Event-based action automation
- Automatic device detection
- Integrated account control
- HEX and ASCII command editor
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Serial Device Application Software for iOS Build and customize your own serial control interface from your smartphone, tablet, or web browser Features • Use with your existing StarTech.com serial products (for example, NETRS232, NETRS2321P, NETRS232485, NETRS232485W) • Issue console commands, build a command library, or design a control page that’s tailored to your application, complete with buttons, sliders, and switches. • Easily set up events based on response types, and map actions to run when an event occurs. • The app automatically detects the StarTech.com serial devices that are connected to your network. • Integrated account control lets you create an account, save settings, and share it across multiple devices. • Includes a HEX and ACSII command editor. • Conveniently test commands as you edit them.
Tailscale
Securely connect devices, users, and workloads with a mesh VPN built on WireGuard. It brings identity to network access, enabling Zero Trust principles across diverse environments. Modernize your network for homelabs, businesses, and cloud infrastructure.
- Secure mesh networking
- Identity-based access control
- Zero Trust security
- WireGuard-based VPN
- Homelab and business VPN
- Cloud and workload connectivity
- Hardware-agnostic overlay network
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Securely connect people, workloads, and even AI agents to anything on the internet with Tailscale, the secure connectivity platform built on WireGuard®. Tailscale brings identity to the network layer so you can control access based on users, groups, tags, and devices instead of IP addresses, applying Zero Trust principles end-to-end across every environment. Tailscale transforms your existing network from a legacy hub and spoke model to a modern, lightweight, and responsive mesh networking architecture that eliminates single points of failure and delivers better performance, scalability, and security for your end users, devices, and remote resources. Tailscale can be used for your Homelab VPN and connectivity, Business VPN, Workload Connectivity across clouds, Kubernetes clusters, regions, and environments, Privileged Access Management (PAM), Edge & IoT, CI/CD, and Securing AI – all on the same platform. Replace legacy VPNs, connect workloads across on-prem and cloud infrastructure providers, power Zero Trust initiatives, and make remote access secure by simplifying software-defined networking and security operations. Modernize your home, your organization, and your enterprise networking at scale with Tailscale. Tailscale is hardware-agnostic, so you can make decisions about your hardware independently from decisions about your network. Tailscale creates an overlay network, using your existing network, so you can incrementally deploy Tailscale without needing new network switches or to change your network architecture. Tailscale integrates with 100+ technologies and dozens of identity providers, and is available on a wide range of platforms — including Apple’s macOS, iOS, and tvOS — so you can securely connect from wherever you work.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is review sentiment: Tailscale at 61% against Serial Control's 0%. Tailscale also leads on chart position (#67 vs unranked) and update cadence (fortnightly vs every 5 weeks). Serial Control's advantage is monetization model (free vs freemium) and iOS requirement (11.0 vs 16.6). On price, ads, in-app purchases and device support there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS
Both are free to download. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
Serial Control ships an update every 5 weeks, Tailscale fortnightly. The most recent releases landed on October 3, 2026 and October 14, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Serial Control | Tailscale |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | — | 4.4 (747 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 0.0% of reviews | 61.0% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | — | 747 — better |
| Update frequency | Every 5 weeks | Fortnightly — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Free — better | Freemium |
| Best chart rank | — | #67 — better |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod | iPhone, iPad, Apple TV |
| Requires iOS | 11.0 — better | 16.6 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 6 MB | 29 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | StarTech.com | Tailscale Inc. |
Customer experience
Serial Control
Tailscale
Bugs and requests
Serial Control
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
Tailscale
Reported bugs
4 issues- Inability to connect or authenticate
- Exit node feature not working as expected
- Inconsistent behavior when switching networks
- App getting stuck in a loading state
Requested features
5 requests- On-demand VPN connection
- Ability to switch between multiple accounts
- More granular control over exit nodes
- Integration with other networking tools
- Dark mode option
In-app purchases
Serial Control
No in-app purchases
Tailscale
No in-app purchases
Questions
Is Serial Control free?
Is Tailscale free?
Do Serial Control or Tailscale have ads?
Which is updated more often, Serial Control or Tailscale?
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