bore vs Chisel
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted remote access & vpn options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.
| Feature | bore | Chisel |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Under-an-hour setup | Under-an-hour setup |
| Health score | 62 · Good | 95 · Excellent |
| Category | Remote Access & VPN | Remote Access & VPN |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Language | Rust | Go |
| Setup difficulty | Easy | Medium |
| Min. RAM | 64 MB | 64 MB |
| Deployment | binary, docker | binary, docker |
| GitHub stars | ★ 11,506 | ★ 16,571 |
| First released | 2022 | 2015 |
| Replaces | ngrok | ngrok |
What are bore and Chisel?
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
Chisel
Chisel is a fast TCP and UDP tunnel transported over HTTP and secured with SSH. It is a single executable that helps bypass firewalls and provide secure endpoints.
- TCP/UDP over HTTP
- SSH-secured tunnels
- Single binary
- Firewall traversal
bore vs Chisel: key differences
Bore is written in Rust, while Chisel is built with Go. Chisel is the more established project (first released 2015), while bore arrived in 2022.
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
Choose Chisel if…
- Single small binary
- SSH-encrypted tunnels
- Works over plain HTTP
Watch out for
- CLI configuration only
- Sparse documentation
Frequently asked questions
Is bore or Chisel better?
Neither is universally better. Chisel has the larger community, while bore is simpler to set up (easy difficulty). Choose based on the comparison table above and your own setup.
Are bore and Chisel free and open-source?
Yes. bore is licensed under MIT and Chisel under MIT. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run bore and Chisel with Docker?
bore: yes. Chisel: yes.