Chisel vs pgrok
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 | pgrok |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Under-an-hour setup | Under-an-hour setup |
| Health score | 95 · Excellent | 79 · Good |
| 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 | docker, binary |
| GitHub stars | ★ 16,570 | ★ 3,648 |
| First released | 2015 | 2023 |
| Replaces | ngrok | ngrok |
What are Chisel and pgrok?
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
pgrok
pgrok is an open-source, self-hosted alternative to ngrok for exposing local web servers to the internet via secure tunnels. It uses SSH for transport and is simple to deploy.
- SSH-based tunneling
- Self-hosted server
- Custom subdomains
- Lightweight Go binary
Chisel vs pgrok: key differences
Both projects are written in Go. Chisel is the more established project (first released 2015), while pgrok arrived in 2023. Chisel has the considerably larger community, at 16,570 GitHub stars versus 3,648.
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 pgrok if…
- Released under the MIT license
- First-class Docker support for quick deployment
- Active community (3.6k GitHub stars)
- Written in Go
Frequently asked questions
Is Chisel or pgrok 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 pgrok free and open-source?
Yes. Chisel is licensed under MIT and pgrok under MIT. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Chisel and pgrok with Docker?
Chisel: yes. pgrok: yes.