bore vs gTunnel
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 | gTunnel |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Under-an-hour setup | Under-an-hour setup |
| Health score | 62 · Good | 8 · At risk |
| Category | Remote Access & VPN | Remote Access & VPN |
| License | MIT | GPL-3.0 |
| Language | Rust | Go |
| Setup difficulty | Easy | Medium |
| Min. RAM | 64 MB | 64 MB |
| Deployment | binary, docker | docker, binary |
| GitHub stars | ★ 11,506 | ★ 274 |
| First released | 2022 | 2020 |
| Replaces | ngrok | ngrok |
What are bore and gTunnel?
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
gTunnel
gTunnel is a self-hosted TCP tunneling tool built on gRPC that can forward and reverse-forward ports between a server and connected clients through firewalls. It is run as a server and client pair.
- gRPC-based tunneling
- Forward and reverse ports
- Firewall traversal
- Server-client model
bore vs gTunnel: key differences
Bore is written in Rust, while gTunnel is built with Go. Licensing differs — MIT for bore versus GPL-3.0 for gTunnel. GTunnel 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 274.
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 gTunnel if…
- Released under the GPL-3.0 license
- First-class Docker support for quick deployment
- Written in Go
- Tiny footprint — runs in 64 MB RAM
Frequently asked questions
Is bore or gTunnel better?
bore is the stronger all-round pick: it has both the larger community and the simpler easy setup. Consider gTunnel if its specific feature set fits your needs better.
Are bore and gTunnel free and open-source?
Yes. bore is licensed under MIT and gTunnel under GPL-3.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run bore and gTunnel with Docker?
bore: yes. gTunnel: yes.