Comparison

Tailscale vs HexaCalc

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

Head to head
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.

About

HexaCalc

This free utility app provides seamless number system conversions between hexadecimal, binary, and decimal. It offers a clean, customizable interface with full calculation history and supports essential arithmetic and bitwise operations.

Highlights
  • Hexadecimal, binary, and decimal conversions
  • Full calculation history
  • Customizable interface and app icon
  • Arithmetic and bitwise operations
  • Tabbed interface for focused use
  • Multitasking and Slide Over support
Features
Read full description

The best programmer’s calculator on the App Store made for students and professionals in the computer field. Completely free without ads of any kind, easy to use, fully customizable and beautiful, this app is sure to impress! HexaCalc will fulfill all of your conversion and calculation needs between the hexadecimal, binary and decimal number systems. This app was designed to work seamlessly on both iPhones and iPads including multitasking and Slide Over support for iPads. HexaCalc also includes full calculation history for all calculators, allowing you to view past calculations. Click on any of the past calculations to copy the result to your clipboard which will let you paste it in for the next calculation! What sets HexaCalc apart from other calculators on the App Store is its simplicity and design. With a designated tab for each number system and the option to disable the binary or decimal tabs, users can focus on the functionalities they desire instead of being overwhelmed with extra information. Even with separate tabs, conversion between the number systems remains as simple as ever. Simply type a number into one of the number system tabs and switch tabs to another number system - you will see the same number converted! HexaCalc also offers seamless customization beyond any similar app - switch between 8 system colours with just a tap - even the app icon will change to your selected colour! It is also easy to disable unwanted tabs and all customizations will be saved for all future usage of the app. List of Operations • Addition, subtraction, multiplication, division • AND, OR, XOR, NOT • 1's compliment, 2's compliment, left shift, right shift • Modulus, exponentiation, square root This app supports all iPhones with iOS 13+ and all iPads with iPadOS 13+. Privacy Policy: https://anthony55hopkins.wixsite.com/hexacalc/privacy-policy Terms & Conditions: https://anthony55hopkins.wixsite.com/hexacalc/terms-conditions

Screenshots

Tailscale3 screens
HexaCalc4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is review sentiment: HexaCalc at 100% against Tailscale's 61%. HexaCalc also leads on rating (4.9 vs 4.4) and monetization model (free vs freemium). Tailscale's advantage is ratings volume (747 vs 25) and chart position (#84 vs unranked). On price, update cadence, ads and in-app purchases 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.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

HexaCalc holds the better App Store score, 4.9 against 4.4. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Tailscale has 747 ratings behind it against 25, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 61% of Tailscale's written reviews are positive against 100% of HexaCalc's.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Tailscale ships an update fortnightly, HexaCalc monthly. The most recent releases landed on October 15, 2026 and October 6, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard5 real differences · 6 level
Tailscale versus HexaCalc: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterTailscaleHexaCalc
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.4 (747 ratings)4.9 (25 ratings) — better
Positive reviews60.9% of reviews100.0% of reviews — better
Number of ratings747 — better25
Update frequencyFortnightly — betterMonthly
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNoNo
MonetizationFreemiumFree — better
Best chart rank#84 — better—
DevicesiPhone, iPad, Apple TViPhone, iPad, iPod
Requires iOS16.615.0 — better
Further details — not scored
Size29 MB2 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperTailscale Inc.Anthony Hopkins

Customer experience

Tailscale

All ratings747 ratings
Positive83.8%
Neutral3.2%
Negative13.0%
Written reviews450 reviews
Positive60.9%
Neutral10.9%
Negative28.2%

HexaCalc

All ratings25 ratings
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%
Written reviews4 reviews
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%

Bugs and 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

HexaCalc

Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.

In-app purchases

None

Tailscale

No in-app purchases

None

HexaCalc

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Tailscale free?
Tailscale is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is HexaCalc free?
HexaCalc is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Which has better reviews, Tailscale or HexaCalc?
HexaCalc is rated higher. Tailscale averages 4.4 out of 5 from 747 ratings, while HexaCalc averages 4.9 from 25 ratings.
Do Tailscale or HexaCalc have ads?
Neither Tailscale nor HexaCalc shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Tailscale or HexaCalc?
Tailscale ships an update fortnightly, and HexaCalc monthly. Most recently, Tailscale was updated on October 15, 2026 and HexaCalc on October 6, 2026.

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