Hello I’ve been using cloudflare to get remote access for the couple apps I selfhost, but lately I’ve been hearing about the wonders of tailscale.
It seems that the free tier is enough for my use. Which would be a safe option to have remote access for my 3D printer? Also how are both in terms of privacy?
Cloudflare hates VPNs, so when it comes to privacy, it’s not really a contest.
Cloudflare ironically has a VPN-ish service that no one talks about called Cloudflare Warp.
I sometimes use it to access piratebay since it’t ban where I live.
WARP (a client) just connects you to CF’s network.
If your server is running
cloudflared(an outbound-only tunnel) then you can enroll your WARP client to reach your server, while your server is never accessible on the public web. That’s the principal behind Zero Trust.While techinically yes, WARP can be considered as a VPN, it is just a secure tunnel to an endpoint. In which case you can argue any point-to-point tunnel is a VPN.
Warp is 2 products. A wireguard-go VPN that changes your IP and uses cloudflare’s network instead of your ISP. This service doesn’t necessarily require the 1.1.1.1 app (desktop app is called cloudflared) since it’s just Wireguard under the hood.
And Warp is also a VPN tunnel that allows you to reach services hosted on Cloudflare’s network with their client cloudflared as you just described. This allows you to make any service available on the internet and further manage its access using Cloudflare’s firewall options or Zero Trust for secure private applications.
The latter use is more popular than the former in my observance since not many people I know aside from the Chinese use it as a VPN. (mainly for circumventing their national firewall).
Wait, what’s this about them hating VPNs?
I guess they mean that you get to solve many Captchas if you access Cloudflare-protected sites through a VPN.