bore vs rathole
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?
bore
Modern, simple TCP tunnel in Rust
VS
rathole
Lightweight and high-performance reverse proxy for NAT traversal
| Feature | bore | rathole |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Remote Access & VPN | Remote Access & VPN |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Language | Rust | Rust |
| Setup difficulty | Easy | Medium |
| Min. RAM | 64 MB | 64 MB |
| Deployment | binary, docker | binary, docker |
| GitHub stars | ★ 11,363 | ★ 13,999 |
| First released | 2022 | 2021 |
| Replaces | ngrok | ngrok, frp |
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 11.4k GitHub stars
Choose rathole if…
- Released under the Apache-2.0 license
- First-class Docker support for quick deployment
- Mature project with 14k GitHub stars
- Written in Rust
Frequently asked questions
Is bore or rathole better?
Neither is universally better. rathole 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 rathole free and open-source?
Yes. bore is licensed under MIT and rathole under Apache-2.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run bore and rathole with Docker?
bore: yes. rathole: yes.