SHSelfHostIndex

bore vs boringproxy

A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted remote access & vpn options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.

Not the right match-up?
BO bore Modern, simple TCP tunnel in Rust VS BO boringproxy Simple self-hosted reverse proxy and tunnel manager
Featureboreboringproxy
Deploy effortUnder-an-hour setupUnder-an-hour setup
Health score62 · Good15 · At risk
CategoryRemote Access & VPNRemote Access & VPN
LicenseMITMIT
LanguageRustGo
Setup difficultyEasyEasy
Min. RAM64 MB64 MB
Deploymentbinary, dockerbinary, docker
GitHub stars★ 11,506★ 1,384
First released20222020
Replacesngrokngrok

What are bore and boringproxy?

bore

bore is a modern, simple TCP tunnel tool that exposes local ports to a remote server. It is a tiny self-hostable alternative to ngrok with just a few hundred lines of code.

  • Minimal TCP tunnel
  • Self-hostable server
  • Optional secret auth
  • Tiny codebase

boringproxy

boringproxy is a simple but powerful tool for tunneling from a public server to a private machine, with automatic HTTPS. It is designed to be boringly reliable and easy to run.

  • Automatic HTTPS
  • Single binary
  • Web admin UI
  • Self-hosted tunneling

bore vs boringproxy: key differences

Bore is written in Rust, while boringproxy is built with Go. Boringproxy is the more established project (first released 2020), while bore arrived in 2022. Bore has the considerably larger community, at 11,506 GitHub stars versus 1,384.

Why pick each one

Choose bore if…

  • Released under the MIT license
  • Easy to set up — beginner-friendly
  • First-class Docker support for quick deployment
  • Mature project with 11.5k GitHub stars
bore details

Choose boringproxy if…

  • Released under the MIT license
  • Easy to set up — beginner-friendly
  • First-class Docker support for quick deployment
  • Active community (1.4k GitHub stars)
boringproxy details

Frequently asked questions

Is bore or boringproxy better?

Neither is universally better. bore has the larger community; both share a easy setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.

Are bore and boringproxy free and open-source?

Yes. bore is licensed under MIT and boringproxy under MIT. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.

Can I run bore and boringproxy with Docker?

bore: yes. boringproxy: yes.

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