Firezone

Firezone is a Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA) and VPN replacement platform built on WireGuard — providing fast, secure remote access that's 3-4x faster than traditional VPNs through encrypted peer-to-peer connections with NAT traversal (holepunching) technology, automatic failover, and identity-based access control. Founded in 2021 and backed by Y Combinator, Firezone raised $2.91 million, reaching $1 million in revenue in 2024 with a 7-person team and launching Firezone v1.0 after 200%+ active user base growth in 2023.\n\nFirezone's architecture uses WireGuard's state-of-the-art VPN protocol (fast, secure, minimal attack surface) with a management layer that handles the enterprise requirements: SSO integration with Okta, Azure AD, and Google Workspace for identity-based access policies, automated certificate management, split tunneling for selective routing, and the holepunching technology that enables direct encrypted connections between clients and resources without traffic routing through central servers (eliminating the bandwidth bottleneck of hub-and-spoke VPN architectures).\n\nIn 2025, Firezone competes in the ZTNA and secure remote access market with Cloudflare Access, Tailscale (the most popular WireGuard-based mesh VPN), and traditional enterprise VPN vendors (Cisco AnyConnect, Palo Alto GlobalProtect) for enterprise remote access. The ZTNA market has grown as security teams recognize that traditional VPN architectures (where authenticated users get broad network access) don't align with Zero Trust security principles that assume breach and minimize lateral movement. Firezone's open-source version builds developer adoption and trust, while the commercial version provides enterprise management and support. The 2025 strategy focuses on growing enterprise deployments, deepening access policy granularity, and positioning as the cost-effective alternative to premium ZTNA products.