Better, who knows. Seems different in that Flipflop uses P2P connections directly to the peer, alternatively via other available peers (and initial connection might use central signaling server), while taildrop seems to depend on a tailnet, which is typically hosted by Tailscale (unless you run that yourself).
I guess it's a bit like comparing WeTransfer with Airdrop, one tries to use the network they're on already (internet) where the other favors local-local connections.
I think it always does the initial connection via the DERP relays, doesn't it? Even if a direct initial connection in theory is possible (no NATs or anything else in the way), the connection itself is always established via the relays, then "upgraded" to a local connection. But maybe they've changed this since I looked at it?
Beyond that, even with a local connection established, all the coordination traffic will still go via the tailnet, those don't suddenly become local-first. But this might also have changed.
What I'm sure is still there today, is that all Tailscale clients automatically upload their logs to Tailscale's servers unless you opt out:
> Each Tailscale agent in your distributed network streams its logs to a central log server (at log.tailscale.com). This includes real-time events for open and close events for every inter-machine connection (TCP or UDP) on your network. - https://tailscale.com/docs/features/logging
Of course, doesn't stop a local connection from working so is only tangentially related, but worth keeping in mind that a "local tailscale connection" still has a lot of external traffic related to it, even though the data you transfer, when possible, uses more local connections.
iroh is different and more than just a vpn, where you use a bunch of tools together, you can do it all in iroh with one identity, the tunnel, the file transfer, the ssh access, and others. Look at tunnet for example https://github.com/tunnetio/Tunnet to get a better idea.
Taildrop looks good, I didn't know about it.
But it's more for when you already use Tailscale, which relies on a central server and someone who "owns" that network.
In Flipflop you don't need anything besides the app, and each two peers form a "network" of their own, with no owner and no management.
> which relies on a central server and someone who "owns" that network
Tailscale connections are peer-to-peer. They only own the coordination server, which you can ignore and host your own.
Yes, but someone, a user with an account on Tailscale, is the manager of that network and can decide what devices can get in, etc.
For some cases that is good, but Flipflop is addressing a slightly different use case.
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Better, who knows. Seems different in that Flipflop uses P2P connections directly to the peer, alternatively via other available peers (and initial connection might use central signaling server), while taildrop seems to depend on a tailnet, which is typically hosted by Tailscale (unless you run that yourself).
I guess it's a bit like comparing WeTransfer with Airdrop, one tries to use the network they're on already (internet) where the other favors local-local connections.
> which is typically hosted by Tailscale
Tailscale hosts relay servers as a fallback. Connections are peer-to-peer between devices.
I think it always does the initial connection via the DERP relays, doesn't it? Even if a direct initial connection in theory is possible (no NATs or anything else in the way), the connection itself is always established via the relays, then "upgraded" to a local connection. But maybe they've changed this since I looked at it?
Beyond that, even with a local connection established, all the coordination traffic will still go via the tailnet, those don't suddenly become local-first. But this might also have changed.
What I'm sure is still there today, is that all Tailscale clients automatically upload their logs to Tailscale's servers unless you opt out:
> Each Tailscale agent in your distributed network streams its logs to a central log server (at log.tailscale.com). This includes real-time events for open and close events for every inter-machine connection (TCP or UDP) on your network. - https://tailscale.com/docs/features/logging
Of course, doesn't stop a local connection from working so is only tangentially related, but worth keeping in mind that a "local tailscale connection" still has a lot of external traffic related to it, even though the data you transfer, when possible, uses more local connections.
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tailscale does P2P too, it only fails back relays to when it cannot do P2P.
It is better in one way: Taildrop supports iOS.
I agree with this
iroh is different and more than just a vpn, where you use a bunch of tools together, you can do it all in iroh with one identity, the tunnel, the file transfer, the ssh access, and others. Look at tunnet for example https://github.com/tunnetio/Tunnet to get a better idea.