Comparison

Tailscale vs Shinobi Go

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

Shinobi Go

Access your Shinobi CCTV and NVR systems from your mobile device. View live camera feeds and recorded footage remotely. Connect to your server from anywhere in the world with private, easy remote access.

Highlights
  • Live camera viewing
  • Access recorded footage
  • Remote server connection
  • Easy remote access
  • Private server access
Features
Read full description

The official mobile client for Shinobi CCTV and NVR Systems. Watch your cameras live and see their recordings stored in your Shinobi server! The mobile app is free to get going! With our app you even have the option of connecting to your server while you're away from home! Our Easy Remote Access servers are private and ready to use anywhere in the world!

Screenshots

Tailscale3 screens
Shinobi Go3 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is monetization model: Shinobi Go at free against Tailscale's freemium. Shinobi Go also leads on iOS requirement (13.0 vs 16.6). Tailscale's advantage is ratings volume (763 vs 6) and update cadence (fortnightly vs every 2 months). On price, rating, 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

On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 4.4 for Tailscale against 4.5 for Shinobi Go. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Tailscale has 763 ratings behind it against 6, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews are what separate them: 61% of Tailscale's written reviews are positive against 50% of Shinobi Go's.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Tailscale ships an update fortnightly, Shinobi Go every 2 months. The most recent releases landed on October 22, 2026 and September 29, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard6 real differences · 5 level
Tailscale versus Shinobi Go: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterTailscaleShinobi Go
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.4 (763 ratings)4.5 (6 ratings) — better
Positive reviews60.9% of reviews — better50.0% of reviews
Number of ratings763 — better6
Update frequencyFortnightly — betterEvery 2 months
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNoNo
MonetizationFreemiumFree — better
Best chart rank#56 — better—
DevicesiPhone, iPad, Apple TViPhone, iPad, iPod, Mac — better
Requires iOS16.613.0 — better
Further details — not scored
Size29 MB82 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperTailscale Inc.moe Alam

Customer experience

Tailscale

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

Shinobi Go

All ratings6 ratings
Positive83.3%
Neutral0.0%
Negative16.7%
Written reviews4 reviews
Positive50.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative50.0%

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

Shinobi Go

Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.

In-app purchases

None

Tailscale

No in-app purchases

None

Shinobi Go

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Tailscale free?
Tailscale is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is Shinobi Go free?
Shinobi Go is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Which has better reviews, Tailscale or Shinobi Go?
Shinobi Go is rated higher. Tailscale averages 4.4 out of 5 from 763 ratings, while Shinobi Go averages 4.5 from 6 ratings.
Do Tailscale or Shinobi Go have ads?
Neither Tailscale nor Shinobi Go shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Tailscale or Shinobi Go?
Tailscale ships an update fortnightly, and Shinobi Go every 2 months. Most recently, Tailscale was updated on October 22, 2026 and Shinobi Go on September 29, 2026.

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