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Best Free Alternatives to ngrok
Stop paying $0 - $25/mo+. Discover professional-grade tools that won't break your budget.
Category: Networking & IngressVerified for 2025
Top Recommended Replacements
Cloudflare Tunnel (cloudflared)
FREEBest Overall Enterprise Alternative
Why we like it
100% free for most personal use cases; includes world-class DDoS protection and WAF; no limits on bandwidth or tunnel duration; part of the Zero Trust ecosystem.
Keep in mind
Requires a domain pointed to Cloudflare nameservers; setup is more 'infrastructure-heavy' than ngrok's single CLI command.
Tailscale Funnel
FREEBest for Secure Private Access
Why we like it
Zero-config mesh networking; Funnel allows you to expose specific ports to the public internet while keeping everything else private; ultra-low latency peer-to-peer connections.
Keep in mind
Requires the Tailscale client to be installed; Funnel is still evolving in terms of advanced traffic inspection compared to ngrok.
Localtunnel
FREEBest for Quick Webhook Testing
Why we like it
Completely free; no account or signup required; incredibly simple 'npx' command usage; great for temporary demos.
Keep in mind
Less stable for long-term production; no built-in security modules (OAuth, IP restrictions); URLs can sometimes be flagged by filters.
Pinggy
FREEBest Client-less Alternative
Why we like it
No download required (works via a single SSH command); supports HTTP, TCP, and even UDP (which ngrok lacks in lower tiers); includes terminal-based request inspection.
Keep in mind
Less feature-rich dashboard for managing thousands of global endpoints compared to ngrok's Enterprise tier.
zrok
FREEBest Open-Source Zero-Trust Choice
Why we like it
Built on OpenZiti; provides both public and private sharing; supports 'hardened' tunnels that don't expose your IP to the public internet; completely free and self-hostable.
Keep in mind
Smaller community than ngrok or Cloudflare; requires a bit more networking knowledge to master the 'private' sharing modes.
Serveo
FREEBest SSH-based Alternative
Why we like it
Zero installation; works on any machine with SSH; supports custom subdomains for free; very lightweight.
Keep in mind
Occasional downtime; lack of a GUI for those who prefer web dashboards over the command line.
LocalXpose
FREEBest for Feature/Price Balance
Why we like it
Includes a built-in file server and Let's Encrypt SSL; support for UDP and TLS tunnels; significantly cheaper than ngrok's 'Personal' plan for similar features.
Keep in mind
Requires a dedicated client; smaller ecosystem of plugins and SDKs.
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