Jetty vs Tailscale Funnel
Funnel is a feature of Tailscale, and that is both its strength and its boundary: it assumes you live in a tailnet. Serving something publicly means a ts.net URL tied to your node. Jetty assumes nothing beyond a terminal.
The short version
Already running Tailscale everywhere and mostly sharing with people inside your tailnet? Funnel (and Serve) may be all you need. Sharing polished previews with clients who should never hear the word "tailnet"? Jetty.
Side by side
| Jetty | Tailscale Funnel | |
|---|---|---|
| Share several servers as one page | Yes — public gallery page | No |
| Requires VPN client / mesh membership | No | Tailscale on the sharing machine |
| URL | Jetty subdomain, reserved label, or your custom domain | Your machine's ts.net hostname |
| Custom domains | Captain and up | No |
| Request inspection + replay | Captain and up | No |
| Private-by-default sharing | Public URLs; IP allowlists per tunnel | Excellent — Serve stays inside the tailnet |
Comparisons reflect publicly documented behavior as of August 2026. Spot something out of date? Tell us: support@usejetty.online.
Where Tailscale Funnel wins
- If the audience is inside your tailnet, Tailscale Serve is private sharing with zero extra product.
- One tool for VPN, mesh networking, and occasional public exposure.
- Security model — WireGuard-based identity for every node.
Where Jetty wins
- The viewer needs nothing installed and the sharer needs no mesh — one CLI command.
- Presentable URLs: reserved labels and custom domains instead of node hostnames.
- Galleries, live status, and traffic inspection aimed at the demo-and-debug workflow.
Common questions
- Can Jetty restrict who sees a tunnel?
- Per-tunnel IP allowlists and blocklists (CIDR, IPv4/IPv6) on paid plans, and galleries only show the tunnels you choose. It is filtering, not identity-based access — if you need per-user auth in front of a tunnel, Funnel with Tailscale identities is stronger.
See it instead of reading about it
The live demo gallery is the whole pitch. Dinghy is free — no card, no clock.