Beyond the Network: How Border0 Differs from Tailscale

If you’ve tried Tailscale or Twingate, you know how refreshing they feel compared to the old world of VPNs. They’re simple, secure, and easy to use. Built on modern protocols, they replaced clunky VPN appliances with a lightweight setup that “just works.” You log in with your SSO, your laptop joins the “vpn,” and suddenly your resources feel local. No more endless configs, brittle site-to-site tunnels, or opening up endless firewall rules.

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Border0 provides that same modern VPN experience, easy, fast and reliable, but for us that’s just the beginning. Because here’s the truth: modern VPNs like Tailscale and Twingate still operate at the network layer (Layer 3). Once you’re “on the network,” the VPN has no context about what you’re accessing and what you’re allowed to do.

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If you need to SSH into a server, you still need the hostname, your SSH key, and the right permissions. If you need to access a database, you need to know the address, open a client, and track down that shared dbadmin password. If you need Kubernetes access, you need your kubeconfig and role mappings. The VPN gets your packets to the right subnet, but that’s where it stops, the rest is up to you.

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That gap, between secure network access and actually using applications is where we focus.

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The Problem With Stopping at the Network

Network access alone introduces a set of headaches we’ve all lived with. The first is over-privileged access. VPNs are blunt instruments. Once connected, you often see more than you should. Maybe you only needed access to a single database, but suddenly you can connect to every server on the subnet. That’s not just a security risk, it’s noise and clutter for the end user.

Then there’s the issue of credential sprawl.  The VPN doesn’t solve the fact that you still need credentials for each service. Engineers end up juggling SSH keys, database passwords, and kubeconfigs, often shared or long-lived. It’s messy and it doesn’t scale.

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Why does this matter? Because many of these systems (SSH servers, databases)  were never designed with SSO in mind. They’re legacy or specialized tools that don’t integrate easily with the way we log in to modern apps. So instead of one identity, teams end up with dozens of disconnected credentials floating around. That creates friction for engineers, and it creates risk for the business. Wouldn’t it be better if you could log in to these resources the same way you log in to Slack or Google Workspace, with your SSO identity, through your VPN? 

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Visibility is also limited. A VPN log might show “Alice connected to 10.0.0.5:22.” But what did Alice do? Did she run ls or rm -rf /? Did she query customer data or just check a schema? The VPN can’t tell you.

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Finally, access control is coarse. Modern VPNs have ACLs, but they’re usually IP and port-based. You can allow or deny traffic, but you can’t say “Alice can log in as support, not root,” or “Bob can query but not modify this database.” To achieve that, you need to stack a PAM tool on top of your VPN, plus custom configs.

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These are fundamental limitations of a network-only model. And they’re exactly why we built Border0 differently.

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The World’s First Application-Aware VPN

At Border0, we took the same modern VPN foundation:  WireGuard, identity-aware access, ease of use and asked a simple question: what if the VPN didn’t stop at the network? What if it understood the applications we use daily?

That’s what we mean by the world’s first application-aware VPN. Instead of just a secure pipe, we provide a direct, identity-aware connection to the resources you actually need. That might be a server over SSH. It could be PostgreSQL, MySQL, MongoDB, or MSSQL. It could be a Kubernetes cluster, a Docker environment, or an internal web app.

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When you log in with your SSO, you don’t just “get on the network.” You see a clear list of resources you’re allowed to access. One click or one command connects you, no separate passwords, no guessing IPs, no credential scavenger hunt.

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Fine-Grained Control at Layer 7

Because Border0 is application-aware, our access policies are meaningful at the action level. On a database, you might allow a developer to run SELECT queries but prevent them from running DELETE or INSERT. On a server, you might allow someone to log in as support but not as root. For SSH, you can give someone the ability to open a shell while blocking file transfers or port forwarding. In Kubernetes, you can scope a user’s access to specific namespaces, even letting them view logs without giving them the ability to exec into a pod.

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This is true least-privilege access, enforced directly by your VPN solution. There’s no extra PAM stack to deploy, no bolted-on jump hosts, no brittle workarounds. It’s built in.

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Full Visibility and Auditing

Every session through Border0 can be logged and recorded. That means every SSH command, every SQL query, every kubectl action is tied to the user’s SSO identity. Security teams get full audit trails, and compliance reporting gets dramatically simpler.

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We take it one step further with AI-powered session analysis. Instead of just collecting logs, we interpret them. The system can summarize what happened, flag risky behavior, and highlight anomalies. If someone exported ten thousand rows from the customer database at three in the morning, that’s spotted and surfaced right away. It’s like having a security co-pilot sitting in on every session.

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Designed for Developer Experience

We’ve lived the pain of clunky access ourselves. In the engineering world, speed and agility are everything. But when security tools slow engineers down with clunky UIs, manual approvals, or workflows that don’t fit how we actually work, developers end up choosing between velocity and security. And let’s be honest, velocity usually wins. When an outage hits, shortcuts appear, static secrets creep back in, and blind spots re-emerge.

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At Border0, we obsess over making the secure path the easy path. Log in with SSO and your resources are immediately available. Connect in one click from our web client or with a single command from your preferred shell. No passwords, no static keys, just your SSO identity. And if you prefer, you can even access resources directly in your browser.

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The result is security that fits the workflow: engineers get instant, reliable access, while security teams get granular control and visibility. No one has to fight the system, and no one has to choose between speed and safety. With Border0, you really can have your cake and eat it too!

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Why This Matters

This shift, from network-only VPNs to application-aware VPNs matters for every role. For engineers, it means no more wasting time setting up tunnels or juggling creds. If you need to run a quick query on staging, you log in with SSO and go. The secure way is now the fastest way.

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For security teams, it finally delivers fine-grained policies you can actually enforce. Instead of answering “can Alice reach 10.0.0.5?” you can answer “can Alice log in as root?” or “can she run UPDATEs on the production database?” With full session logs, audits become straightforward.

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For leadership, it replaces the need to buy and integrate both a VPN and a PAM solution. Instead of stitching together multiple tools, you get one platform that does both. That means fewer moving parts, lower cost, and a future-proof model that scales as your org grows.

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Comparing Side by Side

Put simply, solutions like Tailscale and Twingate are modern, identity-aware VPNs. They are excellent at making access to networks simple. But they stop at Layer 3.

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Border0 picks up where they leave off. We do all of the above and add Layer 7 awareness. So instead of just reaching a subnet, you connect straight to the service you need. With fine-grained policies, full auditing, and a developer experience that feels natural.

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The next step is clear: evolve the VPN from a network tool into a platform for data and application access.

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Concrete Examples

Here’s what this looks like in practice.

The old way:  A developer who needs database access connects to the VPN, hops onto a jumpbox, and digs through a password manager for credentials. Those credentials are shared across dozens of engineers, usually with full admin rights. Query-level logs? Often nonexistent so zero visibility. Familiar?

With Border0:  They click “Staging DB” in our web portal or desktop app. Instantly, they’re dropped into a clean, web-based SQL console, or their favorite database client on their desktop. They’re authenticated with their SSO identity, scoped to read-only queries, and every query is logged and analyzed.

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The old way: A support engineer who needs SSH access juggles keys and jump hosts, often with shared root privileges and little oversight. A typical problem is that SSH keys have to be distributed across every system, creating endless work during onboarding and offboarding. Keys pile up, sprawl across environments, and tend to linger forever.

With Border0: They simply run ssh prod-server and are logged in as the correct support user,  not root,  with port forwarding blocked by policy. The entire session is recorded for audit, ​​and key distribution becomes a thing of the past.

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The old way: A developer who needs Kubernetes access waits for kubeconfig distribution, wrestles with role mappings, or risks being handed cluster-wide admin rights. Once inside, activity is hard to track, and visibility into who did what is often limited or nonexistent.

With Border0:  They get out-of-the-box SSO access to Kubernetes clusters. Running kubectl gives them scoped access to the staging namespace only. No manual config. No risk of leaking credentials. And for anyone who isn’t living in Kubernetes every day, the Border0 web client makes it simple. You don’t have to be a K8s expert to get work done, it’s designed to be easy no matter your skill level.

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In all of these cases, the old way meant juggling a stack of tools. Your VPN only got you “on the network.” From there you still needed a jump box, a PAM tool, secrets management, and audit logging, each bolted on, each adding friction.

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With Border0, all of that comes built in. VPN access, identity, fine-grained controls, and full auditing are part of one seamless solution.

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Conclusion: The Future of Infrastructure Access

VPNs have come a long way. Tailscale, Border0 and other modern day VPN solutions, proved that VPNs can be delightful again. We believe the next leap is clear: VPNs must also be application-aware.

That’s what we’ve built: a VPN that connects you not just to networks, but to applications with the right permissions, complete visibility, and a user experience engineers actually enjoy.

So what’s the difference? In one line: they connect you to networks; we connect you to networks and applications!

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The best way to understand it is to try it. Contact us for a demo, or sign up for free, connect a resource, and see how easy secure access can be when the VPN itself understands your applications.

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