USE CASE / 01

Reach the device.
Skip the detour.

Connect to a device by public key. Iroh handles encryption, NAT traversal, and relay fallback.

Quickstart↗See it in practice↓

Same room

Cellular

Across the hall.Across time zones.

BLE

LAN

Direct

ALaptop

BPhone

CTablet

DTablet

RRelay

Direct · encrypted

[01]

Identity over location

Reach the same device even when its IP address changes.

[02]

Connectivity built in

Connect directly when possible, with relay fallback when needed.

[03]

Part of your product

Embed iroh in your app. No separate VPN client for users.

iroh vs. Tailscale

Your app.
Your rules.

Build remote access around your users. iroh gives you direct connections to shape into your own product. Tailscale gives you a private network to connect devices and services.

Comparing app connectivity with iroh and Tailscale
What you need	iroh	Tailscale
What you’re building	Remote access as a feature of your product	Access to devices and services on a private network
Customer onboarding	Your sign-in, your pairing flow. No iroh account required for peers	Enroll devices or embedded apps into a tailnet; automate through APIs
Native mobile integration	Rust core with first-party Swift and Kotlin bindings	tsnet embeds Go; libtailscale adds a C bridge and Go runtime
Who can connect	Your app decides which endpoint identities to trust and what they can do	Tailnet membership and centrally managed access policies
What you build on	QUIC streams and datagrams for your own application protocol	IP networking for TCP and UDP services, including through tsnet
What your users install	Your app, with iroh inside	Tailscale’s client, or your app with an embedded Tailscale library