Comparison

Serial Control vs Tailscale

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

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.

Highlights
  • Customizable control interfaces
  • Command library builder
  • Event-based action automation
  • Automatic device detection
  • Integrated account control
  • HEX and ASCII command editor
Features
Read full description

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.

About

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.

Highlights
  • 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
Features
Currently charting
Read full description

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

Serial Control4 screens
Tailscale3 screens

Verdict

The call

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

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Both are free to download. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Serial Control ships an update every 5 weeks, Tailscale fortnightly. The most recent releases landed on October 3, 2026 and October 14, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard5 real differences · 6 level
Serial Control versus Tailscale: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterSerial ControlTailscale
PriceFreeFree
Rating—4.4 (747 ratings) — better
Positive reviews0.0% of reviews61.0% of reviews — better
Number of ratings—747 — better
Update frequencyEvery 5 weeksFortnightly — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNoNo
MonetizationFree — betterFreemium
Best chart rank—#67 — better
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPodiPhone, iPad, Apple TV
Requires iOS11.0 — better16.6
Further details — not scored
Size6 MB29 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperStarTech.comTailscale Inc.

Customer experience

Serial Control

Written reviews1 reviews
Positive0.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative100.0%

Tailscale

All ratings747 ratings
Positive83.8%
Neutral3.2%
Negative13.0%
Written reviews449 reviews
Positive61.0%
Neutral10.9%
Negative28.1%

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

None

Serial Control

No in-app purchases

None

Tailscale

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Serial Control free?
Serial Control is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is Tailscale free?
Tailscale is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Do Serial Control or Tailscale have ads?
Neither Serial Control nor Tailscale shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Serial Control or Tailscale?
Serial Control ships an update every 5 weeks, and Tailscale fortnightly. Most recently, Serial Control was updated on October 3, 2026 and Tailscale on October 14, 2026.

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