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What is nixscale?

Learn what nixscale does, where your traffic flows, and what it does and doesn't do today.

For:MemberAdminOwnerUpdated September 16, 2026

nixscale connects your company's devices over a private, encrypted network. Whether they're in the office, at home or in the cloud, your devices reach each other without opening a single port to the internet.

The connection itself is made by the official, open-source Tailscale client on each device. nixscale provides the control server those clients talk to, the access rules and the management panel.

Where does your traffic flow?

There are two layers, and they work separately:

LayerWhat it doesWhere
Control planeKnows which devices are on the network and who may reach whom, and distributes that to the devicesOn nixscale's servers; every network gets its own control server
Data planeThe actual traffic between your devicesDirectly device to device, end-to-end encrypted (WireGuard)

Data between your devices does not pass through our servers. When a direct connection can't be made (for example both sides are behind restrictive networks), traffic takes a detour through Tailscale's public relay (DERP) servers; even then it stays end-to-end encrypted and the relay can't see the content.

Access is closed by default

A device being on the network doesn't mean it can reach other devices. In nixscale no traffic is allowed by default; access is opened by the rules you write:

  • People's computers are managed with people groups.
  • Servers and gateways are managed with labels.

That keeps the answer to "who can reach what" in one place, and closes someone's access in a single step when they leave.

The structure

nixscale's layers
Organization (your company)
└── Network (its own control server, its own IP block)
    ├── Devices         personal computers and machines
    ├── People groups   cover people's computers
    ├── Labels          cover machines
    └── Rules           source → destination → protocol/port

For details, see Core concepts.

What nixscale doesn't do today

So you don't lose time on wrong expectations, today's limits:

  • Phones and tablets aren't supported. macOS, Windows and Linux computers can connect.
  • No exit node. It can't be used to route your internet traffic through another device; nixscale is for reaching your company's own resources.
  • Your device's own DNS isn't taken over. Only names belonging to your network resolve through nixscale; everything else keeps using the device's normal DNS.
  • Networks can't be deleted from the panel. To shut a network down, contact support.

What's next?