Chisel vs GOST
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted remote access & vpn options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.
| Feature | Chisel | GOST |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Under-an-hour setup | Under-an-hour setup |
| Health score | 95 · Excellent | 91 · Excellent |
| Category | Remote Access & VPN | Remote Access & VPN |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Language | Go | Go |
| Setup difficulty | Medium | Medium |
| Min. RAM | 64 MB | 64 MB |
| Deployment | binary, docker | binary, docker |
| GitHub stars | ★ 16,571 | ★ 7,527 |
| First released | 2015 | 2017 |
| Replaces | ngrok | Chisel, ngrok |
What are Chisel and GOST?
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
GOST
GOST is an open-source command-line tool that provides flexible secure tunneling and proxying with support for many protocols. It is self-hosted to build relay chains and forward traffic.
- Multi-protocol tunneling
- Relay chaining
- Port forwarding
- Single binary
Chisel vs GOST: key differences
Both projects are written in Go. Chisel is the more established project (first released 2015), while GOST arrived in 2017. Chisel has the considerably larger community, at 16,571 GitHub stars versus 7,527.
Why pick each one
Choose Chisel if…
- Single small binary
- SSH-encrypted tunnels
- Works over plain HTTP
Watch out for
- CLI configuration only
- Sparse documentation
Choose GOST if…
- Released under the MIT license
- First-class Docker support for quick deployment
- Mature project with 7.5k GitHub stars
- Written in Go
Frequently asked questions
Is Chisel or GOST better?
Neither is universally better. Chisel has the larger community; both share a medium setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.
Are Chisel and GOST free and open-source?
Yes. Chisel is licensed under MIT and GOST under MIT. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Chisel and GOST with Docker?
Chisel: yes. GOST: yes.