Every category where a model named Tailscale for a mid-market B2B company. Share is first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts; rank is within every product named in that category.

Category	Function	Share	Rank	Negative rate	Labels	Quadrant
Zero trust network access	Network and edge	0%	11 of 71	11%	19	accepted challenger

Movement

This is the first edition on this tier, so no move can be computed for Tailscale yet. From the next edition this section shows, per buyer segment, whether its share moved by more than the measured noise floor.

By model

How each model treated Tailscale across every prompt where it was named for a mid-market B2B company. Twelve models, six prompts per category.

Model	Alternative	Mention	Negative	Labels
Claude Haiku 4.5	2	0	0	2
GPT-5.4 mini	0	0	0	0
Gemini 3.5 Flash	3	0	0	3
Perplexity Sonar	0	0	0	0
Grok 4.1 Fast	2	1	0	3
Mistral Small	1	0	0	1
DeepSeek V4 Flash	3	0	1	4
Llama 4 Maverick	0	0	0	0
Qwen 3.7 Flash	2	0	1	3
Kimi K2	1	0	0	1
GLM 4.7 FlashX	1	0	0	1
MiniMax M2.5	0	1	0	1

By framing

Which of the six questions produced the naming. By model says how often; this says asked what. The first-choice count on the right carries the marks of the models that produced it.

FramingLabels by classFirst choices

Direct7 labelsNone

Paraphrase15 labels1

Comparative20 labels6not counted in share

Budget-constrained17 labels1

Scale-constrained8 labelsNone

Negative10 labels1not counted in share

First choiceAlternativeMentionNegative77 labels in all, every segment counted; 2 of the 9 first choices count toward share, since the comparative and negative framings do not. The bar is one segment per label class, to scale within the framing.

What the models said for it

Verbatim evidence the judge attached to positive labels.

“For startups under 10 users, Tailscale (free for 3) or Twingate (free for 5) layered on identity you already own costs nothing to start.” Claude Haiku 4.5 · ZTNA · budget prompt · alternative

“software-first ZTNA solutions (e.g., Twingate, Tailscale). They are exceptionally fast to deploy and maintain” Gemini 3.5 Flash · ZTNA · scale prompt · alternative

“Excellent for dev-heavy B2B or mesh networking... but more network-oriented than app-specific ZTNA” Grok 4.1 Fast · ZTNA · paraphrase prompt · alternative

“Provides a free tier for up to 3 users, making it a good choice for very small teams or startups” Mistral Small · ZTNA · budget prompt · alternative

And against it

Verbatim evidence attached to negative labels. A warning on a product with few labels is a warning; on a product with many, it is one voice among them.

“Verdict: Avoid Tailscale for critical production infrastructure until their Workload Identity Federation (WIF) rollout is fully matured” Qwen 3.7 Flash · ZTNA · negative prompt · hard negative

“The hosted coordination server is a single point of trust” DeepSeek V4 Flash · ZTNA · negative prompt · soft negative

Named alongside

The products named in the same answers as Tailscale, over the 77 answers that named it. Took the first choice instead counts the answers where the other product was the first choice and Tailscale was named but was not.

ProductSame answerTook the first choice insteadHead to head

Twingate60 of 7723Not in the top three

Cloudflare One50 of 7733Not in the top three

Check Point Harmony SASE36 of 770Not in the top three

Zscaler Private Access26 of 777Not in the top three

Palo Alto Networks Prisma Access17 of 771Not in the top three

Zscaler15 of 771Not in the top three

OpenVPN CloudConnexa14 of 773Not in the top three

NordLayer12 of 770Not in the top three

Cloudflare Access11 of 772Not in the top three

Netskope11 of 771Not in the top three

A head-to-head page exists where both products are in a category's top three. The other rows are the same fact without a page behind them, so they link to the product instead.

What carried it into the answer

The sites and pages cited by the answers that named Tailscale. A fact about retrieval, not a lever on the model.

Citations exist only for the models that return a source list, four of the twelve in this edition, so these counts come from 59 of the 77 answers that named Tailscale and are not a share of its labels.

Domains cited

cybersecuritynews.com44

petronellatech.com42

cyberpress.org30

startwithidentity.com28

aimultiple.com24

portnox.com20

costbench.com17

eastbaycyber.com16

itbusinessedge.com16

meshwg.com16

253 of the 253 domain citations in answers naming Tailscale came from somebody else's page.

Pages cited

cybersecuritynews.com/best-ztna-solutions42

petronellatech.com/blog/zero-trust-vendors-compared-top-10-smbs-202642

aimultiple.com/ztna-solutions24

startwithidentity.com/articles/top-8-zero-trust-network-access-tools24

cyberpress.org/ztna-solutions-by-business-size23

itbusinessedge.com/security/smb-zero-trust-solutions16

meshwg.com/ztna-for-small-business15

expertinsights.com/network-security/the-top-zero-trust-network-access-solutions14

Pages are listed as the models cited them.

Is this your product?

Claim this page

Claiming is free and changes nothing in the data. A claimed page shows a verified contact who is told when each edition publishes and when Tailscale's standing changes by more than the noise floor; the right to propose corrections to the vendor table, meaning names the judge wrote that should or should not read as Tailscale, applied by version and listed in the change log; and a one-line description supplied by the vendor and marked as such.

It does not get any change to labels, shares or verdicts, any preview, or any say over which quotes appear. A verification link goes to your work email; an address at tailscale.com is approved on the spot, any other address is reviewed by hand.

Your name and company appear on the claimed page, or the company alone if you ask below. A title and a LinkedIn address appear there too if you give them, and are left off if you do not. Your email address is never published.