Secure Remote Access for Homelab
One of the first challenges I faced in building my homelab was figuring out remote access. I didn’t just want convenience — I wanted something that was secure, reliable, and easy enough to maintain long-term.
Two modern solutions stood out: Tailscale and Twingate. Both fall under the umbrella of “Zero Trust Networking,” but they take slightly different approaches. After testing both, I decided on Tailscale. Here’s why.
Why Remote Access Matters in a Homelab
Remote access isn’t just about connecting to your machines from the couch. For me, it’s about building habits that mirror real-world IT practices:
- Secure connections, not exposed ports.
- Easy onboarding for additional users (family, collaborators).
- Scalable enough to grow as the lab grows.
The homelab is my sandbox, but I also see it as my training ground for cloud and DevOps. I want it to reflect how modern organizations secure their environments.
Twingate: Zero Trust Done Right (But With Overhead)
When I first looked at Twingate, I was impressed. It leans heavily into the Zero Trust philosophy — don’t trust anything by default, always verify, and control access with fine-grained rules.
Some of the things I liked about Twingate:
- Strong Zero Trust model. Every resource is protected behind authentication.
- Granular access control. You can define policies down to individual resources.
- Enterprise mindset. It’s designed for teams, compliance, and large deployments.
But here’s the rub: in a homelab, the enterprise-grade complexity can feel like overkill. Setup required more planning, more moving pieces, and more ongoing management. For an enterprise IT shop, that’s the point. For me, running a lab in my free time, it was friction I didn’t need.
Tailscale: Dead Simple, Surprisingly Powerful
Then I tried Tailscale. Within minutes, I had my devices connected in a peer-to-peer mesh VPN — no central VPN server, no complex firewall rules.
Here’s what stood out:
- Ridiculously easy setup. Install the client, sign in, done.
- Peer-to-peer by default. Devices connect directly whenever possible, falling back to relays only if needed.
- Built on WireGuard. That means fast, modern cryptography out of the box.
- Free tier fits a homelab. Up to 20 devices, which is plenty for me right now.
Instead of feeling like I was babysitting the system, Tailscale just worked. It let me focus on the services I was actually trying to run — Pi-hole, Traefik, Kubernetes — instead of the plumbing underneath.
Where They Diverge
So which is better? That depends on your goals.
- Twingate shines if you’re simulating an enterprise IT environment or want to practice managing Zero Trust at scale. It’s policy-driven, compliance-ready, and geared toward professional deployments.
- Tailscale wins if you want simplicity with strong security. It’s ideal for individuals, small teams, or homelab builders who want secure remote access without overhead.
For my homelab, I realized the choice was simple: I needed something that kept momentum going. The more friction I added to my environment, the more likely I was to stall on the bigger goals. Tailscale let me keep moving forward.
Why I Ultimately Chose Tailscale
At the end of the day, I chose Tailscale because it struck the right balance between security and simplicity. It gave me enough peace of mind to expose my homelab safely, but not so much complexity that it slowed me down.
And here’s the bigger takeaway: when you’re building a homelab, the “best” tool isn’t always the one with the most features or enterprise credibility. Sometimes the best tool is the one that keeps you learning, building, and experimenting without unnecessary roadblocks.
For me, that was Tailscale. For you, it might be Twingate — and that’s the beauty of the homelab journey.
If you’re running a homelab or small IT environment, what’s your go-to for secure remote access?