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In the best case scenario, and in most cases, ZeroTier connects peer-to-peer and none of your network traffic travels through our servers. This means transfers go as fast as your CPU & network can compress, encrypt and send packets, and how fast the remote end can receive them.
Network Resources
There are some cases, such as hostile NATs & firewalls in which your encrypted packets do indeed get relayed through our root servers. Relaying through our root adds latency. The packets must travel farther physically than they would for a direct, peer to peer connection.
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See Router Configuration Tips for more information on how to resolve such issues.
CPU Resources
ZeroTier uses modern cryptography and has similar performance to tunnels such as OpenVPN, IPSec, Wireguard.
ZeroTier on a low powered, embedded device may not reach your full line speed.
ZeroTier uses hardware AES acceleration when available.
Why is a ZeroTier interface reporting a 10 or 100Mbps link speed?
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