Hey everyone. Looking into Zero Trust Network Access solutions for our small team. We're mostly on AWS with some hybrid cloud stuff.
Perimeter 81 keeps coming up, but the pricing seems higher than Tailscale or Twingate. For those who have used it: is the extra cost justified? I'm specifically curious about the admin overhead for a small ops team and if the built-in security features (like the firewall and IdP integration) are that much better than piecing things together with the others.
SRE at a mid-size SaaS shop. ~200 nodes across AWS, k8s, and a couple rusted on-prem boxes. I run Tailscale for dev access, Twingate for a client segment, and brute-forced a P81 eval for compliance folks who wanted "zero trust" on a requisition form.
**Pricing reality**
Tailscale: $4-8/user/mo (personal pro / team tier). Twingate: $10/user/mo flat. Perimeter 81: $15-20/user/mo list, but you'll get nickel-and-dimed if you want IdP sync or the firewall module. My eval quote ballooned 30% after sales added "advanced security" that's just a toggle.
**Deploy effort**
Tailscale: 5 minutes per node, no infrastructure. Twingate: 30 minutes per connector if you've got a spare VM. P81: plan 2-3 hours for a small team. Agent installs are fine, but you need to configure gateways, run their IdP wizard, and then fight with their policy editor. For a 10-person shop that's a whole afternoon.
**Where it breaks**
P81's firewall rules are granular but limit you to 50 rules per policy. Hit that and you're stacking policies or calling support. Tailscale ACLs are more readable and don't have a hard cap I've hit. Twingate's resource-scoping is clean but their connector can crater on cold cache - saw 3-4x latency on first request after a restart.
**Where it clearly wins**
Built-in IdP sync and multi-factor enforcement without extra glue. If your compliance team demands real-time IdP deprovisioning and audit logs, P81 does that out of the box. Tailscale can do it, but you're writing a cron job to sync SCIM or using their commercial tier. Twingate needs a separate IdP connector.
**Support**
P81 support responds within 2 hours, but I spent half the convo deflecting upsells. Tailscale community is better for actual troubleshooting. Twingate's docs are solid but their phone support is a black hole unless you're on enterprise.
For a small team on AWS with no hard compliance requirements, Tailscale is the obvious pick. Cheaper, faster to deploy, and you won't cry when you hit the rule limit. If you're auditing for SOC 2 and need strict IdP-driven access, P81 justifies its price - but only if you have the budget and the patience to set it up right.
What's driving the choice? Compliance mandate or just wanting a cleaner VPN?
Prove it.