Best 12 Business VPN Solutions
Best value overall: Tailscale. It publishes its pricing, has a genuinely usable free tier for small teams, and its per-service access model is more secure than the network-level access a traditional VPN gives you.
Best free option: WireGuard, if you have the engineering capacity to run it yourself.
Best enterprise picks: Palo Alto GlobalProtect and Cisco AnyConnect, both bundled with firewall infrastructure you may already own.
This category has unusually good pricing transparency compared with the rest of network security six of the twelve vendors below publish rates openly. Here’s the full comparison and what each actually costs.
| Solution | Access model | Pricing model | Published pricing? | Free tier | Self-host | Best for |
| Palo Alto GlobalProtect | Network + full inspection | Bundled with firewall licence | No | No | Yes | PA firewall estates |
| NordLayer | Network + gateway policy | Per user / month | Yes | No | No | SMB, fixed IPs needed |
| Cisco AnyConnect / Secure Client | Network + posture | Per user, tiered | No | No | Yes | Large Cisco enterprises |
| GoodAccess | ZTNA + gateway | Per user / month | Yes | Yes | No | Very small business |
| Twingate | Per-resource ZTNA | Per user / month | Yes | Yes | Partial | Small technical teams |
| ZeroTier | Mesh / virtual network | Per device / month | Yes | Yes | Partial | DIY networking, distributed teams |
| Fortinet | Network + ZTNA | Included with FortiGate | No | No | Yes | FortiGate estates |
| Netskope | ZTNA / SSE | Per user, platform tier | No | No | No | SSE consolidation |
| Check Point Harmony SASE | ZTNA + network | Per user, tiered | Partial | No | No | Mid-market SASE path |
| OpenVPN Access Server | Network | Per connection, tiered | Yes | Yes (limited) | Yes | Self-hosted control |
| Tailscale | Per-service ACL mesh | Per user / month | Yes | Yes | Partial | Best overall value |
| Cloudflare | Per-app ZTNA | Per user / month | Yes | Yes | No | Global performance |
The market splits into two pricing worlds. Cloud-native access vendors Tailscale, Twingate, NordLayer, GoodAccess, Cloudflare publish per-user monthly rates and offer free tiers you can genuinely evaluate with. Enterprise platform vendors Palo Alto, Cisco, Fortinet, Netskope, Check Point are quote-based and bundle remote access into broader licensing.
If you already own the firewall, remote access is probably free. This is the most under-used fact in the category. FortiGate includes remote access. Palo Alto GlobalProtect is licensed with the firewall. Cisco AnyConnect is bundled into most enterprise agreements. Organizations routinely buy a separate VPN product while paying for one they already have.
“Free” means three different things here. WireGuard is genuinely free open-source software you pay in server costs and engineering time. OpenVPN Access Server has a free tier limited by simultaneous connections. Tailscale, Twingate, Cloudflare, and GoodAccess have free tiers limited by user count, designed to convert. All three models are legitimate; just know which one you’re evaluating.
The hidden cost is operational, not licensing. Self-hosted options WireGuard, OpenVPN move cost from a licence line to a staffing line: patching an internet-facing service, maintaining availability, and responding when a vulnerability lands.
Given how heavily remote access infrastructure has been targeted in recent years, that maintenance burden is real and should be priced honestly rather than assumed away.
| If this describes you | Choose | Why |
| Small technical team, want best value | Tailscale | Published pricing, free tier, modern access model |
| Low-cost mesh networking, technical team | ZeroTier | Free tier, easy deployment, centrally managed virtual networks |
| Small business, no IT staff | GoodAccess or NordLayer | Published pricing, managed, static IPs |
| Already own FortiGate | Fortinet | Remote access already included |
| Palo Alto estate | GlobalProtect | Full firewall inspection for remote users |
| Large Cisco enterprise | Cisco Secure Client | Proven at very large scale |
| Global distributed users | Cloudflare | Huge edge network, free tier to test |
| Consolidating onto SSE | Netskope | Access plus data protection in one platform |
| Growing into full SASE | Check Point Harmony SASE | ZTNA and VPN in one migration path |
| Need full data control on-prem | OpenVPN Access Server | Self-hosted with commercial support |
Remote users’ traffic passes through full Palo Alto firewalls with next-generation firewall inspection threat prevention, URL filtering, sandboxing so remote and on-premises security policy is genuinely identical.
Pricing: licensed with Palo Alto firewalls; no separate per-user VPN purchase for core functionality. Advanced features may require additional subscriptions.
Watch for: firewall capacity must be sized for concurrent remote users; requires Palo Alto infrastructure to be worth anything.
Image ALT: Palo Alto GlobalProtect remote access with next-generation firewall inspection
Cloud-delivered business VPN with dedicated gateways and fixed IP addresses so partners and SaaS platforms can allowlist your traffic. No hardware, fast setup, published rates.
Pricing: published per-user monthly tiers, with dedicated server add-ons priced separately.
Watch for: limited site-to-site capability for complex networks; policy granularity below enterprise platforms.
Image ALT: NordLayer business VPN dedicated gateway and team management
The most widely deployed enterprise remote access client, supporting very large concurrent user counts with Duo MFA and ISE posture integration.
Pricing: quote-based, tiered per user, usually within a broader Cisco agreement.
Watch for: licensing complexity; the client is heavy compared with modern alternatives; note the AnyConnect name is being superseded by Secure Client and Secure Access.
Image ALT: Cisco Secure Client AnyConnect enterprise remote access
Built specifically for organizations too small for enterprise sales processes: quick setup, dedicated gateways with static IPs, simple compliance reporting, and pricing on the website.
Pricing: published per-user monthly tiers including a free tier.
Watch for: limited depth for complex environments; smaller global gateway footprint than the large platforms.
Image ALT: GoodAccess secure access gateway for small business teams
Deploy a lightweight connector next to your resources, define who can reach what, and users connect through a client that needs no configuration. No inbound firewall ports required.
Pricing: published per-user monthly tiers with a free tier for small teams.
Watch for: lighter compliance and audit reporting than enterprise platforms; less suited to legacy protocol requirements.
Image ALT: Twingate zero trust connector and per-resource access policy
ZeroTier creates a secure virtual network between laptops, servers, cloud workloads, and other devices, using peer-to-peer connectivity with centrally managed network policies.
It is easier to operate than a bare VPN protocol while retaining the flexibility that technical teams typically want from DIY networking.
Pricing: Free plan for personal and small-business use; paid Essential plan starts at $18/month, with additional device pricing. Enterprise and sovereign deployments use custom pricing.
Watch for: ZeroTier is primarily an overlay networking platform rather than a traditional VPN concentrator. Organizations needing conventional gateway-based VPN controls, extensive enterprise compliance features, or legacy VPN architectures may need a more traditional product.
Image ALT: ZeroTier secure virtual network connecting distributed business devices
FortiClient remote access is included with FortiGate firewalls rather than sold separately, with ZTNA capabilities in the same client as you modernize.
Pricing: included with FortiGate licensing; FortiClient EMS for advanced management is licensed separately.
Watch for: concurrent tunnel limits vary by FortiGate model check yours. Fortinet’s exploited-vulnerability record, including a FortiCloud authentication bypass added to CISA’s Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog in January 2026, makes patching remote access infrastructure a contractual-grade priority.
Image ALT: Fortinet FortiClient remote access VPN managed from FortiGate
Netskope Private Access sits inside its security service edge platform, so remote access policy and data protection across web and SaaS share one console and one policy model.
Pricing: quote-based per user within platform tiers.
Watch for: you’re buying an SSE platform, which is a much larger decision than remote access; over-scoped if access is all you need.
Image ALT: Netskope Private Access zero trust connectivity and data protection
The former Perimeter 81 platform, now Check Point’s SASE offering, combining conventional VPN and ZTNA so you can migrate application by application without switching vendors.
Pricing: per-user tiered; some information published, full quotes through Check Point channels.
Watch for: ignore older comparisons listing Perimeter 81 and Check Point as separate products — they are the same platform; pricing climbs as SASE components are added.
Image ALT: Check Point Harmony SASE zero trust network access
A supported, self-hosted deployment of the protocol much of this industry was built on, with a licence model far cheaper than the commercial platforms.
Pricing: published tiered licensing by simultaneous connections, with a free tier for very small connection counts.
Watch for: you own patching, hardening, and availability for an internet-facing service; the admin interface is basic; access model is network-level unless you build more around it.
Image ALT: OpenVPN Access Server self-hosted VPN administration
A WireGuard-based mesh where devices connect directly to each other rather than through a concentrator, with access-control lists granting per-service zero trust access rather than network-wide access. Setup for a small team takes minutes.
Pricing: published per-user monthly tiers with a free tier for small teams and personal use.
Watch for: less suited to traditional site-to-site tunnels to legacy equipment; compliance reporting is lighter than enterprise platforms.
Image ALT: Tailscale WireGuard mesh network with access control lists
Cloudflare Access authenticates users at one of the world’s largest edge networks so brokering happens close to users almost anywhere, with a free tier that makes proper evaluation easy.
Pricing: published per-user monthly pricing with a free tier; enterprise support tiers cost extra.
Watch for: legacy on-premises protocol support is lighter than the enterprise specialists; deepest value when you’re broadly on Cloudflare.
Image ALT: Cloudflare Access identity-based application access at the edge
Check what your firewall already includes before buying anything. This single step saves more money in this category than any negotiation. Fortinet, Palo Alto, Cisco, and Check Point all bundle remote access with infrastructure many organizations already own.
Compare access models, not just prices. A per-user price for network-level access and a per-user price for per-application access are not the same product. Per-application access limits what an attacker reaches after compromising a device that’s worth paying for, and it’s why Tailscale, Twingate, and Cloudflare compare favourably against nominally similar VPN pricing.
Test the free tiers properly. Six vendors here offer free tiers. Use them deploy to a real team, connect real applications, and see what breaks. This category is unusually easy to evaluate before spending money, and very few buyers take advantage of it.
Price the operational cost of self-hosting honestly. WireGuard and OpenVPN are cheap in licensing and not cheap in attention. If nobody on your team will patch an internet-facing service within days of an advisory, the licence saving is not a saving.
Confirm concurrent connection limits. Enterprise platforms cap concurrent tunnels by hardware model or licence tier, and cloud services sometimes cap bandwidth or devices per user. Size for a snow day, not an average Tuesday.
Common mistakes: paying for a VPN product while an unused one ships with your firewall; leaving departed staff accounts active; running a self-hosted server nobody has patched in a year; and skipping MFA because it complicated the rollout.
Pair whatever you choose with zero trust network access planning rather than treating the VPN as a permanent answer.
Cloud-delivered business VPNs typically charge a modest per-user monthly fee, and this category has unusually good pricing transparency Tailscale, Twingate, NordLayer, GoodAccess, Cloudflare, and OpenVPN all publish rates.
Enterprise platforms from Palo Alto, Cisco, Fortinet, and Netskope are quote-based and generally bundled with firewall or platform licensing.
Yes, in two forms. WireGuard is free open-source software you host yourself, paying only in server costs and engineering time. Several commercial services Tailscale, Twingate, Cloudflare, GoodAccess, and OpenVPN Access Server offer free tiers limited by user or connection count, which are suitable for very small teams and excellent for evaluation.
WireGuard is cheapest in licensing terms because it’s free, but only if you have engineers to run it. For a managed service, the free tiers of Tailscale, Twingate, and Cloudflare cost nothing for small teams.
If you already own a FortiGate or Palo Alto firewall, the remote access you’ve already paid for is effectively the cheapest option available.
For new deployments, zero-trust network access is the better model because it grants access to individual applications rather than placing the device on your network — meaning a compromised laptop or credential yields far less.
Legacy applications and site-to-site connectivity often still need conventional tunnels, so most organizations run both during a multi-year transition.
In licensing, yes. In total cost, often not. Self-hosted remote access means you patch an internet-facing service, maintain availability, and respond to advisories yourself.
Remote access infrastructure has been heavily targeted in recent years, so the maintenance obligation is genuine. Price the staff time honestly before assuming self-hosting saves money.
No. Consumer VPN services mask traffic from your internet provider; they don’t connect you to corporate resources.
They lack centralized management, directory integration, device posture checks, audit logging, and per-user access control all of which business remote access requires and none of which are optional for compliance.
Tailscale is the best value in this category published pricing, a real free tier, and a better access model than the VPNs it competes with. WireGuard is the right answer if you have engineers and no budget, GoodAccess or NordLayer if you have budget and no engineers.
And before you buy any of them, check your firewall: Fortinet, Palo Alto, and Cisco all include remote access you may already be paying for.
Whatever you choose, enforce MFA, patch the gateway on a schedule you’d defend publicly, and plan the move toward per-application access rather than per-network.
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• Best Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB)
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