Show HN: Netrinos – A keep it simple Mesh VPN for small teams • Hacker News Board

Re: Show HN: Netrinos – A keep it simple Mesh VPN for small teams

#71

Post by linsomniac » Tue, Dec 23, 2025, 9:27 PM UTC

sh3rl0ck wrote: post #9

dewey wrote: post #2

What's the main differentiator between Tailscale and Netrinos? Edit: Just found this post https://netrinos.com/blog/tailscale-alternatives-2025 , so it looks like main differentiator is pricing right now.

One's banned in my hostel because of a stupid sysadmin. One isn't.

I've run into a few odd instances of headscale not working where I'd expect it to and I don't understand how it's failing.

- Connected to my phone hotspot in the car outside my son's therapist, it worked for months, but then for 2-3 weeks tailscale wouldn't connect. Browsing worked fine. In the 6 weeks since then, it's worked fine.

- A couple nights ago I was in a Holiday Inn Express. I could successfully connect to tailscale, and ssh to machines at the office (which has tailscale on a public IP, but couldn't pass traffic to my machine at home (behind NAT, we have a DERP next to the machine at the office and also another one on the headscale node at AWS). Maybe they blocked the DERP port?

Re: Show HN: Netrinos – A keep it simple Mesh VPN for small teams

#72

Post by windexh8er » Tue, Dec 23, 2025, 11:13 PM UTC

j45 wrote: post #40

windexh8er wrote: post #34

Well, I wish you the best with this - but I really don't understand the target market. The obvious competitor here is Tailscale. But let's say, reasons, and Tailscale isn't an option. Then you go down the path... TwinGate, Teleport, Netbird, Pomerium, Netmaker, ZeroTier, etc... Even the initial pricing and free tier are you're up against are going to mostly be a deal breaker compared to what's out there. Trusting a V…

Kind of confusing to expect zero competition for a valid opportunity, then you're a category founder with an uphill battle to educate the customer for free, fail, and let the next co swoop in.

I never said there shouldn't be competition. What I implied is that Netrinos looks to be deficient in features and also has no market trust. My question was sincere: why should I trust them? This is a VPN.

Re: Show HN: Netrinos – A keep it simple Mesh VPN for small teams

#73

Post by windexh8er » Tue, Dec 23, 2025, 11:20 PM UTC

1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote: post #41

windexh8er wrote: post #34

Well, I wish you the best with this - but I really don't understand the target market. The obvious competitor here is Tailscale. But let's say, reasons, and Tailscale isn't an option. Then you go down the path... TwinGate, Teleport, Netbird, Pomerium, Netmaker, ZeroTier, etc... Even the initial pricing and free tier are you're up against are going to mostly be a deal breaker compared to what's out there. Trusting a V…

"Well, I wish you the best with this - but I really don't understand the target market." "After years of SSH tunnels, IPsec headaches, and the ssh log horror movie, I wanted something simpler: install, sign in, get work done." "Target market" could be the author There's no good reason to discourage people from writing overlays, unless one is doing so for commercial (i.e., anti-competitive) reasons A more interesting…

> There's no good reason to discourage people from writing overlays, unless one is doing so for commercial (i.e., anti-competitive) reasons

Where did I discourage them? I have no vested interest in any competition. And what I said can be publicly validated: their pricing isn't exactly competitive.

> "After years of SSH tunnels, IPsec headaches, and the ssh log horror movie, I wanted something simpler: install, sign in, get work done."

OK, again - they all solve for this. What's different?

> For example, one might be a Layer 2 overlay whilst the other is Layer 3

OK, I've been doing VPNs a long time. What does this have to do with anything?

> If everyone thought IPsec and OpenVPN was "good enough" then Wireguard and Tailscale would not exist

OK. Thanks? This isn't a protocol discussion. This is a product discussion built on existing protocols. Netrinos has brought zero new to the plate comparatively at the underlying level.

> I still use an unpopular non-commercial L2 overlay from before Wireguard existed that is smaller and faster than anything else I have ever seen

A lot of tools like that exist. If it's "unpopular" there's, generally, a reason why. It could be: niche use case, it could be: doesn't solve a majority of people's problem. But since this is such a super secret L2 overlay I guess we'll never know.

> IMHO, the more overlays that exist, the better

This isn't an overlay. This is a VPN as a service - and my question was intentional: why should I even trust Netrinos. This is a VPN.

Re: Show HN: Netrinos – A keep it simple Mesh VPN for small teams

#74

Post by pcarroll » Thu, Dec 25, 2025, 3:36 PM UTC

linsomniac wrote: post #71

sh3rl0ck wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One's banned in my hostel because of a stupid sysadmin. One isn't.

I've run into a few odd instances of headscale not working where I'd expect it to and I don't understand how it's failing. - Connected to my phone hotspot in the car outside my son's therapist, it worked for months, but then for 2-3 weeks tailscale wouldn't connect. Browsing worked fine. In the 6 weeks since then, it's worked fine. - A couple nights ago I was in a Holiday Inn Express. I could successfully connect to…

I have found that residential ISP routers are notoriously flaky. It doesn't take much to confuse them. A lot of edge cases could be just this.

Re: Show HN: Netrinos – A keep it simple Mesh VPN for small teams

#75

Post by pcarroll » Thu, Dec 25, 2025, 5:21 PM UTC

focusgroup0 wrote: post #24

>We use STUN-style discovery and relay fallback How does your relay compare to Tailscale's (DERP)?

We implement STUN and TURN functionality natively in WireGuard rather than using separate protocols.

Netrinos uses a central rendezvous server that participates in WireGuard handshakes solely to collect your devices' public endpoints and share that information with your other devices. When a device roams to a new location, the server learns the new endpoint and updates the other devices in your account.

When direct P2P fails, Netrinos connections fall back to a relay server. The relay is a WireGuard peer, but it can only relay traffic between peers in your account. All customer accounts are strictly firewalled from each other.

If you want more control, you can enable a device in your account as a relay server with a checkbox in the app. This could be a home PC with a stable connection or a low-cost cloud server.