WireGuard
A modern VPN protocol, around 4,000 lines of code, designed to be small enough to audit properly.
Glossary
Mesh VPN
Also called: Tailscale, Nebula, Headscale, ZeroTier
A private network that connects your own devices directly to each other, rather than routing your browsing through a shared exit server.
Why it matters
It is a genuinely different product from the VPNs reviewed here, and the two are constantly confused. A mesh VPN is for reaching your own machines from anywhere — a home server, a NAS, a work laptop. It is not for hiding your traffic from your ISP behind a crowd of other subscribers.
What most explanations leave out
By default a mesh routes peer to peer with no shared exit, so it gives you no privacy from the sites you visit — traffic leaves from wherever the device is. Exit-node features do exist: Tailscale can route everything through a node you choose, and sells a Mullvad add-on giving genuine shared commercial exits. An exit node you run yourself is still a crowd of one, personally attributable, which is the opposite of what someone expecting a privacy VPN wanted. The two tools coexist happily; neither substitutes for the other.
Related terms
Dedicated IP
A VPN address assigned to you alone rather than shared with other subscribers.
Shared IP
A VPN address used simultaneously by many subscribers.
Router VPN
Running the VPN client on your router so every device on the network is covered without individual installation.
Terms are defined here because they appear in our scoring rubric or in provider reviews, not to fill a glossary.