There's definitely a lot of muddled up terminology here. What they're calling "mesh networking" here is really just VPN in the conventional sense, and what they're calling "VPN" is only a single feature of VPN, namely securely forwarding traffic through an intermediary server. Mesh networking is something else entirely; the "mesh networking" provider they link to as an alternative option doesn't even have the word "mesh" on their site.

I did not realize they had ever offered this. I suppose that may be related to why it's shutting down.

One potential alternative might be to investigate https://tailscale.com/mullvad You can use tailscale for normal device->device routing, and add mullvad VPN as an optional outgoing ip gateway.

I always thought the feature sounded interesting - but - Nord just isn’t a company that screams trustworthy to me, so I never bothered to try it. I’d definitely never store my passwords with them. I’m surprised that’s not their least used feature.

Not a subscriber but I read the comments and apparently they offered this service to non-subscribers as well? My guess was it was a nice loss-leader to attract new customers and they've decided they no longer need it (since signups presumably skyrocketing with all the recent law changes).

Don't know why they didn't just restrict it to paying subs or charge extra for it instead of getting rid of it, seems a stupid business decision that's going to cause lots of cancellations from subscribers that did use it and saw it as a differentiating feature from the competition.

At least when mullvad nuked port forwarding they conveyed their reasoning quite clearly (they kept getting legal claims for people hosting illegal content or torrenting).

Once again, I'll both big-up and ask what's up with Tinc.

As in, I've been using it for years and still do, it's sort of an integral part of my whole deal, but it also seems kind of unmaintained, I haven't checked on that.

And it's not the easiest to set up, but it feels miles ahead of whatever the Wireguard equivalent is or isn't these days.

I have to hard agree with a commenter from that article: I had no fucking idea NordVPN even had this feature, and as a fully self-admitted addict of video essays, I have seen a LOT of fucking NordVPN ads.

It wouldn't make me buy it, I'm just not in the market, but that's an insane feature to just not advertise. And its not surprising it never got much attention.

2025: A major VPN company stops offering Virtual Private Networks.