Top 5 ngrok alternatives to know in 2025

What is ngrok?

ngrok is a versatile, unified ingress and tunneling platform that creates network tunnels for routing traffic from your local or cloud servers to the public. It also provides essential features like authentication, encryption, observability, and network management, enabling you to connect your applications and systems to wider networks, regardless of where they’re hosted.

ngrok facilitates easy testing and sharing of webhooks, APIs, and other services. It also allows you to execute and manage personal web servers without configuring complex network settings, significantly reducing complexity and development time. This is particularly useful when building and testing features that require external access, such as webhooks for chat or call services, or any functionality that needs real-time testing over the internet.

However, ngrok has some limitations, such as the inability to self-host the service and the lack of more flexible security options that may be necessary for critical use cases in industries like banking and healthcare. Due to the limitations of ngrok, some people consider ngrok alternatives.

In this article, you’ll learn more about ngrok and its limitations, then take a look at a few alternatives to ngrok that can address these issues.

Why ngrok is popular

With ngrok, you can easily spin up a secure tunnel between your local servers and a publicly accessible endpoint on ngrok’s servers. This lets other devices and services access your local server by sending requests to the public ngrok endpoint, which then forwards the traffic to your server.

ngrok is easy to use with minimal configuration. It doesn’t require a public IP address or complex router configurations, making it an ideal choice when working within restrictive network environments or for keeping your local network private.

ngrok also ensures secure connections through Transport Layer Security ( TLS) encryption and optional basic authentication. ngrok can be used with any programming language or framework that supports HTTP or HTTPS protocols and is thus compatible with many technologies.

What are the limitations of ngrok?

In a nutshell, ngrok can’t be self-hosted, it’s not a full-fledged VPN solution, there is no support for end-to-end encryption for HTTPS connections, and fine-grained access control may be limited. While ngrok is popular for good reason, these limitations shouldn’t be ignored. Let’s discuss the limitations of ngrok in more detail.

1. Can’t be self-hosted

ngrok operates as a closed-source commercial service, which may pose limitations if you prefer open source solutions or require full control over your networking infrastructure. As a closed service, ngrok’s source code is inaccessible and thus limits your ability to modify or host it yourself. This limitation can be critical for enterprises that need to adhere to stringent compliance and security measures.

Additionally, as a commercial service, ngrok’s pricing structure may influence your decision to use the platform for nonprofit-driven scenarios or for ones that don’t require extensive scaling and integration across multiple teams or projects.

2. Not a full-fledged VPN solution

While ngrok excels at providing secure tunnels to expose your local servers with various network tunneling options, it doesn’t function as a comprehensive VPN solution for your infrastructure.

3. No support for end-to-end encryption for HTTPS connections

ngrok provides encryption options across pricing plans. However, default encryption is lacking end-to-end encryption for HTTPS connections. While mutual TLS is available, it’s restricted to the enterprise plan.

4. Fine-grained access control may be limited

The access control options available with ngrok may not satisfy the needs of every organization, particularly those that require detailed authentication, authorization, and auditing capabilities. This is due to the limited scope and granularity in controlling and restricting specific endpoints and resource types at scale.

All these are important reasons developers may consider using an alternative to ngrok.

Top 5 ngrok alternatives to know

When considering ngrok alternatives, you need to understand the different types that are available. Alternatives to ngrok can be categorized based on their hosting approach: self-hosted (where you manage the software) and managed (typically SaaS applications where the hosting is done for you). Self-hosted solutions can be more cost-effective but require more resources to maintain. Some alternatives offer a “freemium” model, providing basic services for free with paid upgrades for enhanced features or support.

1. Tailscale

Tailscale is technically a VPN solution that offers a convenient way to connect multiple devices, systems, and software environments within a network. Once the Tailscale client is set up, you can securely access and connect to all devices on the network.

Tailscale is built on open source tools such as WireGuard and Let’s Encrypt. The platform is also committed to being free for open source projects and can be partnered with Headscale to ship a completely open source and self-hosted network.

2. PageKite

PageKite is an open source localhost tunneling solution designed to enable web and SSH servers to be easily accessible from anywhere, regardless of the server’s physical location or the type of internet connection used.

3. Cloudflare Tunnel

Cloudflare is a content delivery network (CDN) platform that offers its own managed tunneling solution, Cloudflare Tunnel.

4. Teleport

Teleport supersedes VPNs and tunneling solutions. It’s a managed platform focused on regulating access and security within your organization’s infrastructure.

5. Netbird

Netbird is an open source platform focused on easing the setup and management of secure private networks. Like Tailscale, Netbird utilizes the WireGuard protocol, which enables encrypted tunneling and the creation of secure direct connections.

Choose an ngrok alternative & take your app to the next level

ngrok routes traffic from local or cloud servers to public access and is popular due to its user-friendly nature and its ability to eliminate the need for a public IP address. However, as mentioned, its limitations can be a major drawback, and you may want to consider alternatives to ngrok.

Tailscale, PageKite, Cloudflare Tunnel, Teleport, and Netbird each offer their own advantages and limitations. Choosing the best ngrok alternative depends on your specific needs and requirements, with some overlap.