Alternatives to Cloudflare Tunnel
Exposes a service on your machine to the internet through Cloudflare without opening a single port in your firewall. The listings below can replace it for an important use case. Each note says what changes if you switch.
The original
Cloudflare Tunnel
Exposes a service on your machine to the internet through Cloudflare without opening a single port in your firewall.
Replacements
Listings that take over the same core job as Cloudflare Tunnel.
ngrok
A tunnelling agent and gateway that exposes a local app to the internet with request inspection.
ngrok gives a public URL for a local app with request inspection and SSH and RDP access, but it is closed source and traffic passes through ngrok.
frp
Reach private network services through a reverse proxy.
frp is an Apache-2.0 reverse proxy you run on your own reachable server, removing the Cloudflare dependency but requiring you to configure and protect it.
bore
Forward a local TCP port through a remote server.
bore is a small MIT-licensed tunnel you self-host, which avoids Cloudflare but needs a reachable server and forwards only TCP ports.
Chisel
Fast TCP and UDP tunnel carried over HTTP and secured with SSH.
Chisel tunnels TCP and UDP over HTTP secured with SSH in a single binary, but you must run the server end yourself.
wstunnel
Carry network traffic through a WebSocket tunnel.
wstunnel carries traffic through a WebSocket tunnel you host yourself, with no Cloudflare account needed but both ends to configure.
Pomerium
An identity-aware reverse proxy that gives secure access to internal applications without a VPN.
Pomerium is a self-hosted identity-aware reverse proxy for internal apps with any OIDC provider, but it does not tunnel through NAT for you.
Similar software
Related functionality, not a direct replacement.
No-IP
Dynamic DNS and managed DNS provider with free hostnames and paid plans for remote access.
Caddy
A web server that obtains and renews HTTPS certificates automatically, with a config file short enough to fit on a postcard.
Nginx Proxy Manager
Browser interface for Nginx reverse proxy hosts with automatic Let's Encrypt certificates.
Ligolo-ng
Tunnelling and pivoting tool that presents a real TUN interface.
